


Between Friends and Lovers

by abrosuna



Category: Sengoku Basara
Genre: Alternative Universe - High School AU, Alternative Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, a bit of language, bits of Ieyasu/Mitsunari, implied Keiji/Magoichi if you squint, mentioned Hideyoshi/Hanbei
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-03-20 06:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13711794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrosuna/pseuds/abrosuna
Summary: Sasuke didn’t believe in any of those ridiculous stories about falling for a friend being a taboo because of the risk of ruining a beautiful friendship; he genuinely hated it when it happened in fiction, especially if it took up a big part of the plot, deeming it boring and unrealistic. But now that he himself was in that kind of situation, he was starting to regret all the times he’d insulted those movies as cheap.





	1. Chapter 1

Saying that Yukimura was terrible at lying would’ve been a rather kind euphemism. Not only he was an open book, but when he was aware that something needed to be hidden he immediately found it ten times more difficult to keep a straight face. When it was about keeping other people’s secrets he’d been entrusted with, he was loyal until the end _—_ given that his silence wouldn’t have hurt anyone or created any problems, of course. On the other hand, though, when it was thoughts or emotions of his own that he didn’t want to show on the outside, he always had a hard time (and often failed at it) not letting others notice.

At the time he realised he’d fallen in love with his best friend, he started panicking. He and Sasuke had known each other since they were little, and Yukimura was pretty sure the bond they shared was the deepest one among those he held dear. There was no way he could manage to pretend that everything was the same as always.

At the same time, however, he couldn’t let Sasuke know: he knew his friend liked a classmate of his and had some kind of affair going on with her, if not an official relationship; butting in was out of question. It would’ve been rude and inconsiderate, and on top of everything it would’ve ruined their friendship, which was the worst thing he could imagine happening. He was sure that if he hadn’t paid enough attention Sasuke would’ve found out, and he was dead scared of that happening.

It was a serious problem.

And as if all that weren’t enough, Yukimura was doubtful about his own feelings in the first place. Although only at one point he came to understand what it meant, he was quite sure that his heart had been fluttering like that when he saw Sasuke for a while. When did it even happen? How come he took so long to realise? Falling in love with his childhood friend all of a sudden was already weird, but not even noticing… It was too weird. Was it even a thing that could happen? The more he thought about it, the odder it appeared to him. And the more he saw it as a weird thing, the guiltier he felt, the more he stressed over it, the more he showed his apprehension without intending to do so.

«Yukimura, you’re scribbling on your notes again. What is it that keeps distracting you?» Mitsunari asked, stern but a bit concerned, while they were studying together.

«Why the long face, Sanada?» said Masamune after a basketball game against some other guys of the neighbourhood. «You’ve been quiet for a while now, that’s not like you.»

Even Motochika caught him lost in his thoughts, one day, as they walked together towards Ieyasu’s place to spend the afternoon with the rest of the crew. «Hey, buddy, you look bothered. Is everything all right?»

«Yukimura?»

Sasuke’s voice startled him.

«Yes!»

«You were staring into the void with a weird face. Were you spacing out?» Sasuke had appeared in front of his desk out of nowhere, and was looking at him with one eyebrow raised.

Yukimura felt his blood run cold; he hadn’t noticed him entering the classroom, as lost in his thoughts as he was.

«Ah! Yeah, sorry, I was… worried about homework.» A terrible excuse, but thankfully it came out pretty convincing, and Yukimura wisely decided to shut up before he started adding details that would’ve made it sound irredeemably fake and ridiculous.

A big sigh came from the other. «The term is nearing its end, huh? Are they going too hard on you guys?»

«Kind of…» Yukimura loosened up a little: it was true, after all, that the amount of school work was increasing week after week. «Oh, but I shouldn’t be saying this to you! You have it even harder, don’t you?»

Sasuke was in his last year of high school, whereas Yukimura only in his first, being two years younger than him.

Sasuke nodded once, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers. «Yeah, it’s always the same thing going on and on: finals here, finals there, you have to study properly, think about college _—_ whatever.» He shrugged, looking a bit tired but not particularly worried. He always worked hard, and his grades were fine, he had no reason to take the teachers’ reproaches to the class personally. «Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.»

Yukimura raised his eyebrows, curious.

The other crossed his arms, a grin making its way on his face. «I know a place where they make a super good cheese-cake.»

All problems and doubts were swept away immediately.

«Really?» Yukimura’s face brightened up.

Sasuke nodded, satisfied with the success of his suggestion. «It’s some kind of fast-food, they mostly make burgers and such, and they’ve opened recently. Some friends of mine have been there and said it’s nice, and one of them mentioned that he’d tried the cheese-cake and of course I thought of you. Maybe we could go on Saturday for lunch, if you like. What do you think?»

«I think it sounds great!»

Sasuke smiled, and Yukimura suddenly became conscious of his own heartbeat.

«It’s decided, then,» the older one said, all content. «I can come pick you up in class when school is over and then we can go together.»

«All right!» As worried about this huge problem of his as he was, Yukimura couldn’t help but smile at his friend. He was so incredibly happy.

The bell indicating the beginning of classes rang, and Sasuke had to go back to his class.

It wasn’t a date, Yukimura immediately had to remind himself. It was not. They’d always been going out together because they were friends, there was nothing different now because nothing had changed. The only difference was his stupid heart racing like a fool and his stupid stomach hurting and his stupid blood rushing to his face, making his cheeks itch. But nothing had changed, nor it was supposed to. Two friends having lunch together, that was it, and things were fine like that.

Yukimura sighed deeply, lowering his head onto his desk.

No way things were fine like that… He had never been good at lying, not even to himself.

 

***

 

«You know it’s not a date if he doesn’t know it, right?» Kasuga huffed.

Sasuke shrugged, a sheepish smile on his lips. «Maybe it’s not a date in itself, but it is for me! I’ve decided that I’ll try to be a little more straightforward. Hoping that he will finally get my signals.» Sasuke laughed, but there was a veil of bitterness in that statement. Was it really inevitable to fall for the most oblivious guy on earth?

Kasuga gave him a blank stare. «This is the millionth time I’ve heard you say that.»

Guilt coloured Sasuke’s cheeks with a shade of pink. «Is that right?»

The girl sighed deeply. «You’re always going on about how you’ve made up your mind and how you will try to get to him, but in the end you never do anything. I mean, I could understand when you didn’t want him to know, but now why can’t you just tell him, instead of dancing around like this?»

Sasuke slightly furrowed his brow. «Because it’d be—»

«Yes, yes, I know,» Kasuga interrupted him, «I just meant that I don’t get you. It’d be so much easier.»

The other grinned. «Heh, what can I say… The hard mode is more exciting.»

«Or you’re just stupid,» she argued, making Sasuke laugh.

«You’re so cruel!» he whined with the grin still on his face.

Kasuga hissed, imposing silence on her friend as the teacher walked in and the rest of the class stopped chatting.

 

***

 

Sasuke tried to be optimistic, but he couldn’t help but have the feeling that his efforts were useless. Yukimura was often mocked by anyone who knew him for his being completely oblivious about anything regarding love. He wouldn’t notice if two people close to him liked each other even when it was obvious to everyone else, and sure as hell he wouldn’t recognise it if someone tried to flirt with him, simply exchanging it for an attempt to be nice. Luckily he hadn’t been the receiver of open love confessions many times, so he’d had little chances of unintentionally breaking a poor soul’s heart by reacting with far too much surprise.

Who would’ve thought that the poor soul in question could be Sasuke, someday? Sasuke certainly did not; when he realised he was coming to like his friend as more than a friend, his first, most spontaneous reaction was _—_ he could remember it perfectly, and he somewhat enjoyed recalling it with bitter amusement _—_ “Oh, crap, not _him._ ” He couldn’t have seriously fallen for someone who would’ve never become aware of his feelings unless he told him plain and clear, could he?

Well, damn sure he had. Telling him, however, was impossible.

This had been his second thought, which had followed the first one closely: he’s my best friend. Sasuke didn’t believe in any of those ridiculous stories about falling for a friend being a taboo because of the risk of ruining a beautiful friendship; he genuinely hated it when it happened in fiction, especially if it took up a big part of the plot, deeming it boring and unrealistic. But now that he himself was in that kind of situation, he was starting to regret all the times he’d insulted those movies as cheap.

To be honest, though, his reasons were different: simply put, he found it embarrassing. There was no way he stood a chance, he was pretty sure, therefore a confession would’ve been too embarrassing. He was confident Yukimura wouldn’t have minded, he knew him and trusted him enough to know that their friendship wasn’t in danger _—_ but he wouldn’t have felt at ease, at least for a while. What was the point of trying if he was going to fail anyway? It wasn’t even worth it.

«That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,» Kasuga had harshly commented, when he’d first opened up to her on the matter. «What makes you so sure, in the first place?»

That was a good question. He knew he had a point, but when it came to putting it into words he wasn’t so sure anymore. It wasn’t something that could be explained, he’d defended himself, it was more of a hunch. When he tried to imagine it, it didn’t seem… right. He couldn’t picture Yukimura widening his eyes with surprise, going all red from the embarrassment of finding the proper words to reply, and, overwhelmed by joy, leaping into his arms looking for a hug… All right, maybe he could picture it _—_ not in realistic terms, though. He couldn’t see it actually happening.

«That’s the second dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, but I couldn’t really expect anything different from you, could I.»

The truth was that he was, fair and square, afraid. Not only he was sure he would’ve been rejected, but he was scared of it. He deeply treasured the friendship he shared with Yukimura, and he was very far from finding it a plain and limited relationship, therefore it wasn’t the consequences of a refusal (that is, staying friends) that worried him, but rather the refusal in itself: he didn’t want to say “I like you” if all he was going to receive as a reply would’ve been embarrassed apologies. No matter how he put it, he couldn’t afford to make a move.

For some reason not too hard to investigate, the voice in his mind telling him that he was just being a coward sounded exactly like his lady friend.

With time passing, however, Sasuke had progressively come to decide not suppress his feelings anymore; to be more precise, he’d come to terms with the fact that he couldn’t manage to do that, and thus stopped trying. The warmth that enveloped and clutched his heart when he was with Yukimura was too vivid to pretend it wasn’t there.

He was still firm about avoiding a straightforward confession, but he started trying something, almost unconsciously at first. Longing gazes, warm smiles, silent staring into each other’s eyes without feeling awkward; he wasn’t hiding any of these signs of his affection anymore.

With some more time passing, he eventually resolved he would’ve made an attempt, although a very shy one: since he didn’t know how Yukimura felt towards him (with a lot of help from Kasuga’s reprimands to his cowardice, he’d managed to cast away the prejudice of a secure rejection), he decided that he would’ve tried to conquer his heart and see if there was a possibility for things to go as he wished. If not, he would’ve backed off and left everything as it had always been, without anyone getting hurt. It couldn’t be that difficult, right?

Wrong.

As foreseen, Yukimura was too clueless to notice any of the little things he did to try and express his feelings. Not that the younger one was entirely to blame, to be honest: kindness, care, and attentiveness were already something common between the two of them, and Sasuke couldn’t exactly be too explicit in his intentions if he wanted to stick to his perfect plan. Months passed by, and Sasuke’s mood swayed continuously. One time he was discouraged and wanted to give up, another time he had the impression that things were going in the right direction _—_ but then he started doubting that it was just what his imagination wanted him to see, and changed his mind, and so on.

It was a situation with no way out, but all things considered it wasn’t that bad: sure, it was frustrating and somehow terribly lonely, but he and Yukimura were as close as ever and Sasuke was happy when he spent time with his friend. Maybe he just had to be patient, he came to think, and something _—_ anything was fine, at this point _—_ would’ve happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited to finally post my first chaptered fic, I've been working on it for months! I've already completed it, so I'll post one chapter every week~  
> I hope you'll enjoy reading this story, for now thanks for reading the first chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

Yukimura and Mitsunari had been friends since they were children. They’d become neighbours when the young son of the Ishidas had moved to live with his uncles, since he’d lost his parents in a horrible accident. Yukimura didn’t like to see the new kid so lonely and had no intention of leaving him by himself, therefore he kept annoying the hell out of him until, surprisingly enough, the other accepted him; they found out they were less different than it would seem at a first glance, and thus they became very good friends. Yukimura saw Mitsunari like a sort of older brother, even though at first he was the one to take care of the other by keeping him company, and Mitsunari didn’t dislike thinking of this little ball of energy that was always running around as his own little brother.

Since then they’d always been close, much to Mitsunari’s caretakers’ pleasure, for they were glad their boy had made a friend. Yukimura often dragged the other into sparring with him or playing with the ball or just running to see who was faster or had more stamina, but they also liked to simply sit on the swing at the park and talk. They taught each other what they knew about animals and nature, music, sports, anything; Mitsunari talked about what he learnt in school, since he was older, and Yukimura listened to him in adoration.

It was a bit early to open up about deeper thoughts and feelings, but eventually they got to that point as well, and began to share something deeper and even more precious that what they already had. Honesty was a trait both of them liked in the other, so there was no real reason to keep secrets between them, anyway.

«I can’t help you if you don’t tell me who you’re going on about _—_ I’ve already said this, don’t make me repeat it.»

Yukimura knew that Mitsunari’s piercing stare was fixed on him, but he didn’t have the courage to lift his gaze. He’d gone to his friend’s house to study together _—_ they’d always liked to do that, even though they went to different schools and were, of course, in different years _—_ , and during a break the younger one had started talking very vaguely about this crush of his he’d already mentioned previous times, shyly asking for advice.

He kept turning the little spoon in the cup of tea in front of him, even though the sugar he’d put in it had already melted.

«But it doesn’t matter much who it is, does it? Just… generally speaking is fine,» he said, all the while cursing himself for being unable to conceal his embarrassment. As hard as he tried to avoid it, he realised that he was stuttering, he didn’t finish sentences, and he was afraid his cheeks had been red for a while.

«It does matter,» Mitsunari replied, as stern as usual. «How can I give you advice on how to act if I don’t know whether I approve of the person in question or not?»

«Approve?» Yukimura repeated, almost whining, as he finally raised his head and looked at his friend in the eyes.

«Of course. Were it somebody I considered unworthy of trust and respect, it would be irresponsible to encourage you.»

The younger one sighed. «I— I can’t tell you, I’m sorry. It has to stay a secret.»

Mitsunari seemed a bit offended. «Do you believe me incapable of keeping a secret?»

At least his voice had remained even, meaning he was not even close to being angry for real, but his reaction was rightful: it was a first for him to see Yukimura being so secretive about something personal, since the younger one usually poured it all out without even needing to be encouraged, or if he didn’t want to talk about it he simply didn’t mention it at all.

«No, no, that’s not it!» Yukimura hurried to explain. His eyes trailed down, then, suddenly filled with sadness. «I’m… how can I say… scared of… saying it out loud. As if that could make it more real, and make things worse, somehow... I don’t know.»

Mitsunari’s expression softened.

«I feel like I’m going to explode,» Yukimura continued, letting go of the spoon since his attention had already left the tea a while before. «Sometimes it hurts so much I believe I can’t keep it in any longer, and I’m always scared of my tongue slipping…»

«And why can’t you tell them?»

«Because…» He paused for a moment, biting his lips. «I know he’s not interested. He has a girl he likes, I don’t want to bother him.»

Mitsunari kept silent for a moment, considering the predicament the little guy was in. The poor thing barely knew what love was, and now he’d found himself involved in this kind of troublesome matter. Mitsunari didn’t like to see him suffer.

«It depends on what kind of relationship you have with this person,» he finally said. «If you believe he’d be able to take it well, you could try telling him and see if the pain in your chest eases a bit.»

The younger one shook his head vigorously. «No way, that’d be too embarrassing! It’d only make things awkward!»

Mitsunari stared at him for a moment. «It’s Sarutobi, isn’t it.»

Yukimura gasped. «What— N-no, no way, it’s not him!»

«You’re no good at lying. Look at you, you’re all red.»

«I’m just—»

«There’s no point in hiding it, I had already figured it out some time ago,» Mitsunari said, not holding back a veil of reproach in his voice.

Although reluctant, Yukimura surrendered. «You had…?»

Mitsunari snorted. «Of course I had, it’s painfully obvious. You’re always ridiculously excited about anything, but when he’s around you manage to exceed every expectation. You literally eradiate happiness, it’s unbelievable. Furthermore, when you’re talking to him you’re often blushing. Going out all together has been frustrating in the last couple of months.»

Yukimura wasn’t looking at his friend anymore; overwhelmed with embarrassment, he’d been averting his gaze, furiously biting his lips, his brain continuously coming up with excuses for his behaviour that he discarded only out of respect for Mitsunari. He knew he wasn’t good at hiding his feelings, but was it really so obvious? Could it be that Sasuke’d noticed too, then?

«Is it… Am I annoying?» he asked faintly.

Mitsunari shook his head, looking more serene now. «No, I meant to say that seeing you two act like a couple without knowing what was truly going on felt odd. At least now I know my supposition was right.»

The older one then gazed at the mug that was still on the table, intact. «Drink up, silly,» he said, opening the counter and taking out a bag of biscuits before placing them on the table in front of his friend.

«Here.» One of the few things Mitsunari knew about interacting with people was that offering something good to eat or drink often helped when the other person needed to cheer up, and he’d learnt that with this little guy it was particularly effective.

Yukimura looked up at the other and smiled faintly.

«Thank you,» he said as he grabbed a biscuit and bit it. He didn’t seem too enthusiastic, though, which was a clear sign of how upset he was, because he loved biscuits.

Mitsunari sat down at the table in front of him and kept quiet for a while.

«So,» he said then, «you believe telling him is impossible.»

Yukimura nodded in silence.

«Because there’s someone he likes.»

«Yeah.»

«A girl.»

«Yeah.»

Mitsunari gave out a silent sigh. The whole thing seemed quite suspicious to him. He only knew Sarutobi because he was a friend of Yukimura’s, so he didn’t have any kind of clue _—_ nor he wanted to _—_ about the other’s private life, but he did know one thing: Yukimura wasn’t the only reason why the two of them seemed like a couple. Mitsunari had seen that Sarutobi had his eyes fixed on Yukimura probably far more than the latter had been capable of noticing, since the bastard was swift to turn his head away or to change his expression into a mocking smirk.

But that kind of gaze, as far as Mitsunari knew, didn’t exactly resemble that of a mere friend. There was something in Sarutobi’s eyes that reminded him of the way Hanbei and Hideyoshi, his beloved caretakers, looked at each other, as well as the way Ieyasu, his boyfriend, looked at him; and Mitsunari had learnt to recognise adoration and affection in it.

That was why the idea of Sarutobi being interested in another person didn’t seem right. But then again, what could Mitsunari know? The main reason why he didn’t like Sarutobi much was exactly that he could never tell what was going on in the guy’s mind and it was difficult to read his true intentions; the exact opposite of Yukimura’s honesty, in Mitsunari’s eyes. He’d never understood how those two could be so close, or rather, why Yukimura liked Sarutobi so much. He was wondering now more than ever, actually.

He didn’t like this situation one bit.

«I… I don’t know what to do anymore,» Yukimura said after a while. «I thought that waiting for it to go away was the best idea, but… when I see him my heart keeps pounding and it hurts so much I feel like my chest is on fire.» While talking he brought his free hand there, as if to check that everything were all right.

Mitsunari was simply looking at him, conflicted. He would’ve liked to say something, but he believed that giving the other false hopes to cheer him up momentarily would’ve been futile, because it wasn’t going to be of any help. The little guy was already confused enough, bringing up considerations Mitsunari wasn’t sure of himself would’ve only been worse.

«It’s not going away…» Yukimura seemed so vulnerable, with that faint voice. It wasn’t like him. «I’m waiting, but it doesn’t go away, and I don’t know what else to do…»

«I know. It hurts and you’d just wish it disappeared at once because you can’t take it anymore.» Mitsunari got up and reached the other side of the table to place one hand on the younger one’s shoulder. «Drink up, come on, or it’ll get cold.»

Yukimura finished the biscuit he still had in his hand and took a big sip of tea from the mug.

«However he is just one of the million people that could make you happy, he’s not worth too many tears. You are strong enough to bear it until it goes away. And… I am here for you as well.»

Yukimura nodded. «Thanks...»

Mitsunari gave a light squeeze to Yukimura’s shoulder. «I hope it passes soon.»

 

***

 

«Did something happen?» Ieyasu asked, a bit worried, while he sat on the sofa next to his boyfriend. «You look bothered.»

«Yukimura came here, today.» Mitsunari’s stare was fixed somewhere on the floor, his brow slightly ruffled. «He’s having a bad time, and it makes me unhappy.»

«What’s the matter?»

«Love troubles.»

Ieyasu opened his mouth in a silent “oh”. «That’s tough. Poor guy.»

«Listen, Ieyasu.»

The movie they had planned to watch that night was starting, so Ieyasu lowered the volume of the television before turning to his boyfriend.

«You get along with Sarutobi, right?»

«Yeah, pretty well I guess.»

A short pause followed before Mitsunari asked his question. «What do you think of his behavior around Yukimura?» The other didn’t immediately reply, so he took the opportunity to continue. «I’ll explain myself: judging from the way he acts, it seems to me that he has feelings for Yukimura, but I can’t be sure so I’d like to hear your opinion.»

«Well,» said Ieyasu, lifting his thoughtful gaze to the ceiling and crossing his arms, «I’ve never thought anything of it, honestly, since they’re so close, but now that you mention it it's true that he seems pretty affectionate. I mean, they do look like a couple sometimes.»

«You think so too, don’t you? Then why did Yukimura say that he likes a girl?» Mitsunari seemed quite worked up and he was visibly restraining himself from raising his voice, as concerned for his little one’s well-being as he was. Ieyasu noticed it, and thought it was very sweet.

«Well, either we’re mistaken, or it could just not be true.»

There wasn’t much to say about the first option, so Mitsunari didn’t even take it into consideration. «Why would one do such a thing? To lie about his own feelings, making other people suffer?»

«Calm down, Mitsunari.» Ieyasu couldn’t hold back a chuckle. He leaned towards his boyfriend, taking his hand and letting their temples touch. Physical contact often worked well as a tranquilizer, with Mitsunari. «Maybe it was out of embarrassment, or insecurity, or both. Or maybe he wasn’t even the one who said it in the first place and Sanada simply got it wrong.»

«Even so, I cannot accept it,» Mitsunari muttered. «That damn Sarutobi.»

Ieyasu smiled. «Now, now,» he said, before placing a gentle kiss on Mitsunari’s cheek. «I’m sure they’ll sort it out. They care about each other a lot, don’t they? A solution will come naturally.»

 

***

 

On Saturday morning the weather was wonderful, with the sun shining brightly and making all the colours look vibrant and beautiful. A cool breeze clashed with the warmth of the light, but overall the temperature was fine.

Yukimura felt electrified. He’d woken up early and with his heart already fluttering, excited at the thought of what awaited him after classes. Not a date, sure, he had to remind himself a couple of times, but at least a nice meal with Sasuke, which was enough of a good reason to be happy. At school he kept checking the time way too often, glancing at the clock hanging on the wall way too often, and more than once he found himself not paying attention to the lesson – and with a bit of shame he did all he could to stay focused, only to lose his concentration again a few minutes later.

When the last bell rang, his heart skipped a beat. He gathered his things as fast as he could, and he had to wait for the longest six minutes of his life before Sasuke appeared on the door, waving at him with a wide smile.

Yukimura loved it when Sasuke tied up his hair in a low ponytail, which somehow always managed to be messy, and he couldn’t be absolutely sure that his eyes hadn’t widened for a second at the sight.

«Ready to go?» said Sasuke with his usual grin, when Yukimura joined him in the corridor.

Yukimura smiled back. «Of course!»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this AU Hanbei is the brother of Mitsunari's mother, which makes him (and Hideyoshi) Mitsunari's uncles: a headcanon kindly offered by my lovely friend who always has the best ideas. <3


	3. Chapter 3

Yukimura was as cute as ever. Walking side by side, chatting and laughing together, poking fun out of each other and pretending to be offended, only to last little more than a few seconds _—_ everything felt natural because, after all, it was, and after months of silent longing Sasuke had almost gotten used to quietly gazing at Yukimura while he talked, treasuring every little detail of his expressions, surrendering to the warmth that grew inside him and accepting that this was the line beyond which he couldn’t go if he didn’t want to ruin everything. It wasn’t that bad, he repeated to himself.

The place was as nice as promised, and Yukimura was as content with the cheese-cake as Sasuke had hoped to see him. The younger one’s love for sweets was both hilarious and incredibly endearing: his face lit up with delight at the first bite and the enthusiasm of a child blossomed inside him; then after he was finished he sighed with satisfaction, although he never spared a nostalgic glance at the empty plate. Sasuke couldn’t understand how his friend could be such a bottomless pit and still keep in shape (well, actually, since the both of them were in the same karate course under the same teacher, the fearsome Shingen, he had an idea). Every time, however, he ended up offering some of his own, weak to the adorableness of the scene.

«Why don’t we have a walk? We’re not that far from your place, I’ll accompany you home,» he said once they were outside.

«Sure!» Yukimura replied all cheerful. «There’s such a nice weather, it’s perfect for a walk.»

Sasuke was a little ashamed, because the reason behind his suggestion was, in all honesty, to spend together as much time as possible _—_ but after all not wanting to leave is normal when you’re with someone dear, right?

They began walking, and Yukimura immediately turned to Sasuke all excited and praised him for his idea, because that place was amazing and the food was great, so much that he would’ve liked to return some other time. Sasuke pulled out a pleased smirk, reminding his friend that he’d never failed in suggesting nice places. Yukimura agreed with so much conviction that it made the other laugh.

At one point, however, something started to feel strangely different. Sasuke’s gaze happened to fall on Yukimura’s hand, and he mindlessly considered how nice it would’ve been, after such a cheerful meal, to walk home together hand in hand.

In less than one second he understood how that consideration had been a terrible mistake.

His heart fluttered, and all of a sudden subtle quivers started running below his skin, itching, compelling him to move his arm and intertwine his fingers with Yukimura’s. He was doing all he could to contain that impulse, but at the same time he wanted to give in so intensely it hurt. When Yukimura wasn’t looking at him, he kept glancing down at the other’s hand swinging so close to him, easily within reach; it would’ve taken nothing to grab it and look away, both not to see the surprise on Yukimura’s face, and not to let him see the flush on his own cheeks.

Why did it have to be so painful? He’d been repeating to himself for more than a year that he was fine with being friends. Their friendship was amazing, spending time together was wonderful, and even if it wasn’t everything it was more than enough. Even after making up his mind about giving it a try, he’d never doubted that it would’ve been enough, had he been turned down. But if he was so sure, so convinced that taking him by the hand while walking together wasn’t fundamental, then why was restraining himself so painful?

He smiled, as Yukimura turned to look at him in search for approval while talking about how cool it would’ve been to play a football match against Date, Chosokabe and Tokugawa. They would’ve made a strong team, he was saying, and maybe it wouldn’t have been too difficult to make it happen since the three of them used to go to the same high school _—_ although Motochika and Ieyasu, being older, were in a different class than Masamune, and they couldn’t be defined as close friends since Masamune didn’t hang out often with the rest of them, but at least they were acquainted and in good terms.

«I don’t know if those two would agree to come and play with us kids,» Sasuke argued jokingly, before reconsidering what he’d just said. «No, well, maybe Chosokabe could actually get fired up at the idea.»

«Yeah!» Yukimura nodded enthusiastically. «Plus, he and Masamune go along pretty well, I think they wouldn’t mind playing together. And if we ask Ieyasu nicely…»

«Yeah, yeah, you’re right, it wouldn’t be too hard to convince them.»

«I need to tell Masamune as soon as possible, it’d be amazing!»

«What about you, though? You can’t take on the three of them on your own, you should have someone strong on your side too.»

Yukimura gave him a huge, bright smile. «I have you!»

Sasuke couldn’t deny that he wasn’t expecting a reply like that, and his cheeks slightly turned rosy.

He folded his arms behind the back of his head and grinned widely. «Ah, well, that goes unsaid.»

 

When Sasuke saw that they were almost at the Sanadas’ house, he was filled with discontent. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to let go of his chance to take a step forward, and he suddenly realised that he’d wasted a lot of precious time. That maybe he should’ve just taken that hand.

He swiftly grasped the opportunity to crack a joke, making Yukimura laugh. Sasuke, like every other time, couldn’t refrain from thinking how endearing the sound of his laugh was.

«Oh, look, I hadn’t noticed we were already here,» Yukimura said as he recognised his neighbourhood.

«Do you ever notice anything?» Sasuke mocked, getting in return a faint shove accompanied by energetic complaints that had the sound of a smile.

They stopped in front of the gate. The Sanadas had a rather modest house, but it made a nice impression with its little balcony on the first floor, a small porch on the front and a well-kept garden. Mildly high hedges gave it a bit of intimacy, and a little tree with pretty flowers stood on one side of the tiny plot of lawn next to the garden path that led from the gate to the porch.

«So…» Yukimura cleared his throat, but he didn’t add anything else. The two of them were now standing in front of each other, nervously looking around without knowing what to do, as they were both waiting for the other to say something.

Sasuke finally let his gaze stop on Yukimura, and in an instant he felt completely overwhelmed by how pretty his loved one was and how much he wanted to take him into his own arms and nuzzle his hair. _I’m gonna tell him, I swear I’m gonna tell him now._

«Yukimura, uh…»

«Oh, right, sorry, I was lost in my thoughts!» The younger one suddenly seemed to have remembered he was the one who was supposed to go, and he quickly started searching for his keys inside his rucksack.

«No, well…»

«We’ve had a good time, haven’t we? I really had fun.» Yukimura was looking up at his friend and he was smiling. Sasuke had to silently take in a deep breath not to have any more evident reactions. Why did he have to be so pretty?

«Yeah,» Sasuke replied, smiling back. «We should definitely go eat there again some other time.»

«Yes, please! It’d be great!»

Silence fell on them again, only this time they were awkwardly looking at each other.

_I need to tell him._

But before Sasuke could open his mouth, Yukimura spoke again.

«Hey, do you… do you want to stay? We could study together.»

Sasuke imagined the two of them sitting at the desk, studying together. He imagined himself gazing at Yukimura with the corner of his eye for a while, without saying anything, and then leaning towards him and giving him a kiss on the cheek. He imagined things getting very awkward after that.

«Ah, I’d love to, but I can’t, I’m sorry.» Sasuke shook his head, hating himself more and more with every word he uttered. «There’s some stuff I have to do at home today, and I promised to be back in the afternoon. Maybe another time.» He raised his gaze to the sky and faked a lazy smirk to conceal all the bitterness that was eating him away. He tried to lie to himself saying that he was being considerate because since he wasn’t prepared for this kind of situation he simply didn’t want to screw up, but despite everything he couldn’t hide that he was, yet again, retreating.

Yukimura scratched his cheek, his smile going a bit embarrassed. «Oh, I see, all right, it’s fine… Well, ok, see you on Monday, then!»

«Sure.»

They waved, and in a moment Yukimura was inside and Sasuke was walking towards the bus stop.

 

***

 

«Hello?»

«Hey, Kasuga.»

«What is it, Sarutobi?»

«Well, the truth is… I couldn’t stop thinking of you, so I decided to call...»

«I’m hanging up right now.»

«No, no, wait, I was just kidding! Uh… Say, do you… Are you free tomorrow? I was thinking we could study together. You can come to my place, if you like. Or if you prefer I can come over so you don’t have to move.»

She kept silent for a moment. «Do you need to talk?»

Sasuke smiled. She knew him too well. «Yeah, kind of… But I’d rather do it in person. If you’re not busy, of course.»

«No, it’s all right, studying together is fine.»

«You sure it’s not a bother?»

«You’re always a bother. Come here at four, ok?»

«Sure. Thank you.»

«Don’t mention it. See you tomorrow, then...» She hesitated for a moment. «Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it now?»

«Aw, are you worried about me?»

«Of course I’m worried about you, you’re an idiot!»

That made Sasuke laugh. «Very kind, thank you! Don’t worry though, I’m fine.»

«If you say so… All right, tomorrow, then.»

«Yeah, bye!»

 

«That _wasn’t_ a date,» Kasuga said. «It sounded stupid the first time I said it, it’s embarrassing that I’m having to say it again.»

«I know, I know… but I swear, Kasuga, there was something! I could feel it was different from usual.»

She released an exasperated snort. «Weren’t you saying the same thing some time ago? And weren’t you saying only two weeks ago that it could be your imagination? Make up your mind already!»

«No, well, I… Ok, yes, all right, it _could_ be just me. But this time… I don’t know, it was different.»

«Define “different”.» Rather than a request, it sounded more like a sarcastic dare. She hadn’t even lifted her eyes from the exercise she was solving _—_ they’d started with Math, since they were both good at it and could thus chat in the meantime.

Sasuke hesitated. «It wasn’t just a thought I had, like “Oh hey, look at that face, he totally likes me back”, it was… the atmosphere, I guess? You know when you have that hunch about the atmosphere? You don’t really _know_ what’s going on but you _feel_ it. And… I don’t know, I felt like maybe things could go right if I try?»

Kasuga glanced at her phone to check the time and put down her pen. «So you’re always here whining that you don’t know what to do but this one time, all of a sudden, you felt something “different”,» she summed up.

«Well, it’s not really the first time,» he pointed out, a little embarrassed by how ridiculous it sounded put that way. «It’s similar to the impression I’ve been having for a while. But this time it was a lot stronger, like… it really hit me.»

«And have you actually done anything?» Kasuga asked, while getting up from her chair.

Sasuke bit his lip. «Um… Well… I tried…»

Kasuga didn’t even seem surprised by the answer: she simply rolled her eyes before she walked out of the room without adding a word. Although a bit confused, Sasuke returned to his exercises. The girl came back soon with two glasses of iced tea.

«Thanks,» said Sasuke as he grabbed the one she handed him and brought it to his lips.

«Listen, Sasuke,» Kasuga began, looking at him with a serious expression. «It’s easier than you think: if you want to go out with him, ask him out. If you don’t ask him out, you’re not dating. I understand that you keep changing your mind because you care and you don’t want to screw up, but you can’t go on like this forever. What are you going to do?»

Sasuke kept silent for a moment, trying to find an answer he didn’t know himself. Then the corners of his mouth faintly raised in a bitter smile. «I know it’s silly, but… would you believe me if I told you that it’s not just that I don’t want to screw up, it’s that I… Despite everything, I’m still scared of hearing him say no?»

The girl blankly looked at him straight in the eyes. «Yes.»

Sasuke laughed. «That hurt, Kasuga.»

«Do you want me to be sincere or not?»

«Even so…»

She took a sip from her glass and went back to her homework. For a moment she wondered what kind of idiot would let her troublesome friend vent to her about every single thing that happened (or didn’t happen) in his troublesome private life. Sasuke liked to act all cool and collected, as if nothing were capable of shaking him, but in the end when something upset him he came to her bringing all the insecurities he couldn’t deal with alone. And every time she listened with a lot more patience than what could seem from the annoyance she showed. Because, after all, being that kind of idiot meant being a good friend.

«You always tell others to think outside the box,» she observed, unable to hide a shade of amusement, «and now you’re the one trapped inside. How ironic.»

«That’s why I’m talking to you,» he said, giving her a shy grin.

Kasuga fell silent for a moment, focusing on the numbers, letters and symbols in front of her while at the same time she searched for the right words: they’d joked around long enough, now it was time for some decent advice.

«All right, listen. We all know you’re a loser.»

«That’s not true,» Sasuke mumbled as a complaint.

«You talk all big and say that you’ll make him fall at your feet, but you’re so much of a chicken that you don’t even have the courage to ask him out properly, and then you pretend it was a date anyway,» Kasuga continued. As merciless as she was, however, Sasuke had to admit that she was right. «Being stuck in the middle like this is even worse than making the wrong decision. Either you give up completely, or you have to be clear.»

«And how can I do that?» Sasuke dared asking, even though he perfectly knew the reply.

Kasuga glared at him. «Ask him out. On a real date.»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to be clear, by football I mean soccer!


	4. Chapter 4

«What’s the difference between friends and lovers?» Yukimura had asked Mitsunari one day, during one of their study sessions.

Mitsunari didn’t immediately reply; he lifted his head from his book, keeping track of the line he was at with the point of his index finger, and stared at Yukimura in silence for a couple of seconds.

«Is this supposed to be a joke?»

«No, it’s a serious question!» Yukimura immediately explained, a bit embarrassed. «I mean… I was thinking… Friends go out together, care about each other… right? They just… don’t kiss.»

Another pause, another blank stare from Mitsunari.

«Are you saying that the only difference you see is the kiss?»

«I— don’t know…»

«Then think a little harder, silly,» Mitsunari snorted, going back to his book and searching with his eyes for the beginning of the sentence he’d left incomplete. «How do you think lovers become such? Do you think two friends at one point decide to kiss and they’re suddenly a couple?»

Yukimura kept silent for a while, a bit conflicted. He knew that Mitsunari was right _—_ looking at it that way, his question really seemed ridiculous _—_ , but at the same time that example resembled the situation Yukimura was in a little too much. From how he saw it, a kiss was the only thing that would make a difference in his relationship with Sasuke.

«How did you and Ieyasu get together?» he asked then, after a while.

Mitsunari didn’t flinch, but the pale skin of his face slowly started turning pink.

«How is this related?» he said, a bit on the defensive.

«It’s because… You know that I really admire you, right? So I thought… I think you could make a good example…»

«Listen, Yukimura.» Mitsunari decided to forget about studying at least for the time being and with a snort he raised his head to look at the little Sanada. «It’s not that difficult. Pick one of your friends, whoever you like _—_ don’t say who, you know I mostly don’t like them.»

Sasuke, of course, was the first name to flash into Yukimura’s mind.

«Now, think about it. Would you like to kiss them?»

Oh. All right, maybe that wasn’t the best choice. The colour of Yukimura’s cheeks slightly shifted towards a redder shade.

«The point isn’t whether two people kiss or not, obviously,» Mitsunari continued, leaning his back against the chair. It was impossible for him not to notice the change on his younger friend’s face, but he delicately decided to ignore it. «It’s whether they wish for it or not. The difference is in the feelings: friendship and romantic love are similar, in a way, but they are two different ways to be affectionate to someone.»

«Oh…»

«I can’t believe you really had to ask.»

«Thank you,» Yukimura said with a nervous smile. Mitsunari was right, it was stupidly simple. But that put him into an incredibly complicated situation.

This conversation had happened months before, when he was still struggling with the confused mess that were his emotions and trying to understand what was going on in his heart; but now, after a perfectly normal lunch with his best friend, he was back to the same question.

What was the difference between going out as friends and… now? His feelings may have changed, but their relationship hadn’t; then why did he feel so weird that morning? Why did he keep hoping for something to happen even though he knew it was impossible?

For the whole time his heart was bursting with happiness, but he’d gotten pretty much used to that _—_ or, to be precise, he was resigned for things to be that way. However, along the way back home, he started feeling strange. The situation seemed strange. Sasuke seemed strange. And he knew it was only in his head, but all the same he couldn’t stop expecting to hear something sweet, or to feel their pinky fingers touch not by accident! And when it was time to say goodbye he couldn’t refrain himself and he asked Sasuke to stay, and when the other refused and went away he was left with a sad sense of disappointment.

Closed in his room, curled up on his bed, arms hugging his knees and his whole insides hurting horribly, he kept replaying the memories of those few hours in his head over and over, thinking about what had happened and what could have happened and how much he wanted to go up to him and grab his stupid face and tell him that he loved him and press kisses everywhere.

_It’s about whether or not you wish to kiss him._

He would’ve loved to, that was for sure.

But he couldn’t, he knew he couldn’t, so even just thinking about it was a big no.

He took out his books and pencil case, sat at his desk, and started focusing on his homework. Less than five minutes later he was already blankly staring at the page in front of him, lost in his thoughts.

It hurt, but every time he felt like that he tried to think about the girl that Sasuke liked: it helped him convince himself that he had to swallow it silently and it would’ve eventually passed, just like Mitsunari had said. Did it make him jealous? Yes, to be fair he burned with jealousy every time he dwelled on the idea that Sasuke’s heart belonged to somebody else; he was too kind-hearted to acknowledge a selfish feeling like that, though, so he tried his best to ignore it. He wanted Sasuke to be happy, after all.

Yukimura knew Kasuga: she was in the same class as Sasuke, and Sasuke often talked about her. Yukimura remembered when he was still in junior high school, and his best friend told him what high school was like, what his teachers and classmates were like, and how there was this girl that was both smart and rather strong.

«She’s also very pretty, but she has a terrible attitude that pays for all her good qualities,» he’d said with a laugh.

«Did you become friends?» Yukimura had asked, curious.

«For now she’s just irritated because I’m as good as her at everything. But I’m sure I’ll make her fall for me in no time,» Sasuke’d replied with a grin.

«Oh! So she’s going to be your girlfriend?»

«It’s only a matter of time.»

After then, whenever Yukimura asked him about it Sasuke always joked about being too shy to ask her out, or about Kasuga already loving him and simply being in denial, and the topic gradually stopped popping up in their conversations. Yukimura didn’t particularly mind, since he didn’t really understand how this kind of things worked. As far as he knew, everyone had their own way of courting the person they liked, and which one Sasuke was adopting was none of his concern. Sasuke himself wasn’t too keen on mentioning his feelings for Kasuga: when he talked about her, it was simply as a school friend. Yukimura thought he could’ve never guessed what the truth was, hadn’t he known better.

Yes, that was right: Sasuke liked Kasuga. And going out for lunch together wasn’t a date. Yukimura’d known that since the beginning. If something felt unusual, it must have been his imagination. Probably the fact that he liked Sasuke had helped.

Oh…

Yukimura let his forehead heavily fall on the book with a long, exasperated groan. He really liked Sasuke a lot.

 

***

 

«Yo, Sarutobi!»

Sasuke almost jumped in hearing the familiar voice calling for him: he didn’t expect to find Motochika outside the school, waving from the opposite sidewalk. Sasuke raised his arm to greet him, before crossing the street and approaching him.

«Chousokabe! What are you doing here?»

«Had some spare time.» The man shrugged. «Are you going to catch the bus? I need to talk to you for a moment.»

«Sure, no problem.» It was easy to guess something was the matter: they we friends, all right, but meeting like that after school was unusual. Motochika was older than him and no longer in high school, he wasn’t supposed to be hanging around there.

They started walking, Motochika with hands in his pockets and gaze lost among the clouds above them.

«I talked to Ishida,» he began.

Sasuke’s eyes went wide open. «What, really? He acknowledged your presence? This must be a serious matter, then,» he joked.

Motochika snickered. It was true that Ishida didn’t seem to appreciate him much, even though all things considered they were on pretty good terms. «Yeah, I know, right? I was surprised too. I was with him and Ieyasu and he spontaneously started a conversation with me.»

«I’m sure he’s gonna call you bro in no time.»

They both laughed briefly. Chousokabe’s ultimate goal in life was to have all his friends calling him like that, because being always the oldest of whatever group of people he was with he’d developed a liking to being everyone’s big brother: strong, reliable, always ready to lend a hand or to lift the morale with a joke. Unluckily for him, though, he was seen more like the cool uncle of the family _—_ especially by Yukimura and Sasuke, the youngest ones in the crew.

«Say, Sarutobi.» Motochika seemed a bit more serious, now, but his voice was serene. «Do you like him?»

Sasuke shrugged. «He’s a good guy, but he could stop glaring at me every time I talk to him, you know? I mean, I know he doesn’t dote on me, but—»

«No, no, I didn’t mean Ishida!»

Sasuke looked at him a bit confused.

Chousokabe smiled and shook his head. «I was talking about Sanada.»

«Well, of course I do, he’s my best friend.» It was the less convincing reply that could’ve been given: it arrived too late, thus making it clear it had been carefully thought out, and Sarutobi’s voice was definitely too calm and slow to be genuine.

Motochika sighed. «All right, here’s the thing: Ishida was worried about something, so we talked… about you and Sanada. And how you’ve been flirting for the past months.»

Sasuke’s choked gasps while he searched for a way to deny it were a more than sufficient answer.

«Wha— We haven’t—»

«Before you decide what to say, let me finish,» the older man said, raising one hand. «It’s not that we want to poke our noses into your lives _—_ ok, well, I’d be lying if I said I’m not dying of curiosity, but that’s not the point. The fact is that it’s become pretty obvious, man. Basically everyone’s noticed.»

«Everyone…?» Sasuke dared to ask. His stare was stubbornly fixed on the concrete before his feet and his face was burning so hot that he felt a little dizzy. Why the hell did his flawless acting skills have to fail him now? He was perfectly capable of pretending total indifference _—_ but no, every time Yukimura was involved he just had to forget how not to make a fool of himself.

«I asked Maeda too. He said he was convinced you were already dating. Saika gave the same reply.»

«Good grief…» Sasuke covered his mouth with his hand for a moment, slowly brushing his cheeks with his fingers before pulling it away. Apparently he’d done a fairly good job at “not hiding his feelings anymore”. Could it be then that Yukimura was really so dense as to be the only one not to realise?

No, hold on…

«You said… both of us?» he turned his head towards Chousokabe.

The older man furrowed his brow. «Huh?»

«You said you guys thought we were… flirting, or dating, or whatever. Does it mean it’s not just the way _I_ act? I mean, is… does it seem that he likes me?» Sasuke sounded shocked, but it was clear his voice hid a tiny bit of hope too. A part of him felt a little pathetic.

Motochika stared at him with his only eye wide open, blinking once. «Are you for real?»

Sasuke had to stop for a moment to take it all in. He couldn’t believe… No, no way it was true.

His heart was racing like crazy, and he felt as if the rest of the world weren’t there anymore, as if he were isolated in his own bubble while memories of all the times when Yukimura had seemed to be acting strange rushed through his mind, now finally starting to make sense; and, clearer than all the others, the memory of the Saturday before.

He felt a hand pat his shoulder. «Hey, you’re gonna miss the bus.»

«Right.» He tried to pull himself together and went back to walking, with Chousokabe by his side.

«I’m very disappointed in you, Sarutobi,» Motochika said, shaking his head to emphasise the concept. «I thought you were a sharp one, how could you not notice something as obvious as this?»

«Obvious?» Sasuke’s voice cracked. It wasn’t obvious at all if he’d had to suffer for all that time!

«Blindly obvious,» insisted the other. «I mean, come on! He’s always as red as his hoodie when you say something nice to him, and sometimes you just look at each other and smile like two idiots, you can’t tell me you didn’t notice that the way he looks at you is the same you look at him.»

Sasuke raised his index finger to scratch his cheek, extremely embarrassed because in fact no, he hadn’t noticed. Sasuke Sarutobi, with all his intelligence, sense of observation and insight, was so head over heels for a guy that he had failed to notice that his feelings were mutual, and had been struggling for over a year, fretting about nothing. It was pretty humiliating, considering how for all that time he’d been accusing Yukimura of being clueless.

«I… He gets excited over anything, I just thought he was in a good mood,» he poorly tried to excuse himself.

«Yeah, sure.» Motochika didn’t believe him, of course. His grin, however, fell off his face quickly. «That’s still not the point, though.»

They arrived at the bus stop, and the older man had the consideration to lower the volume of his voice a bit, in order not to inform the rest of the people that were waiting there of Sarutobi’s private life.

«So, we thought that it’s pretty weird that you’re still going around in circles. I mean, get what I’m saying? We see you being all lovey-dovey but nothing happens. And I’ll be frank with you, Ishida isn’t very happy with this.»

Sasuke sighed. «When is he happy with anything that involves me?»

Motochika shook his head. «No, well… It’s not just because of that.» He took a deep breath, crossed his arms and looked at the younger one straight in the eyes. «I guess the answer is pretty obvious from your reaction before, but I gotta be sure. Do you really like him?»

Sasuke averted his gaze, sliding his hands into his pockets and hiding his embarrassment with annoyance. «What are you, his father?»

«Like I said before, nobody wants to poke their nose into your life, Sarutobi, but Ishida has a reason to be worried. What’s this story that you have a girlfriend?»

There was a moment of heavy silence as Sasuke’s eyes ran back to Motochika’s face, now wide open and filled with bewilderment.

«What the hell…?»


	5. Chapter 5

«Come on, Ishida, don’t worry so much about it! I’m sure he was just making up excuses because he’s a shy little bastard,» Motochika said with a wide grin on his face, hitting Mitsunari’s back with a pat that came a little too strong.

Mitsunari glared at him. «What worth is there in making up excuses?»

Oops, that probably wasn’t the best way to put it, Motochika realised. Sorry, Sarutobi.

«Now, now, Motochika just meant that it’s probably all a misunderstanding,» Ieyasu intervened, calmly.

Mitsunari turned to look at his lover’s warm smile. He decided he could trust that smile. He knew he could trust it _—_ _if_ Ieyasu managed to say something sensible, of course. He was willing to listen, at least.

Ieyasu continued. «Sarutobi is a good person, and Sanada is his best friend. He would never hurt him on purpose, he’d have no reason to do that.»

«It seems he did, though,» Mitsunari argued, «since Yukimura is hurting because of a despicable lie of his.»

«We don’t know where Sanada got that story from,» Motochika remarked. «Maybe this gal is just a friend of Sarutobi, and seeing them together the little guy got the wrong idea.»

«Or maybe it’s a rumour, you know how teenagers are,» Ieyasu added. «There’s plenty of possibilities.»

«And him being a coward is one of them,» Mitsunari retorted, still not convinced. «Or even worse, playing around with Yukimura.»

«No way.» Motochika shook his head. «I thought we all agreed that they clearly like each other. Having people think that you’re gay for each other is nothing strange between close friends, but I assure you that I know what I’m talking about and those two are a whole different matter. You think so too, Ishida, come on.»

He was right, but Mitsunari couldn’t get what his younger friend had told him out of his head. «Why does Yukimura think otherwise, then?»

Motochika raised his eyebrows. «Well, it’s Sanada we’re talking about, I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t noticed… Besides, you’re not one to talk: Ieyasu had been pining after you for—»

«A-anyway!» Ieyasu’s voice probably came out a bit too loud. He cleared his throat before speaking again, while Motochika snickered shamelessly. «It’s not fair to accuse Sarutobi of anything without proof. It’d be nice if you could give him a little more credit, Mitsunari.» Seeing the glare he got from his boyfriend, however, he continued. «But if it can help you worry less, how about we ask him directly? If he knew that it’s bothering Sanada, I’m sure things would become easier.»

«No,» Mitsunari replied sharply. «Yukimura doesn’t want him to know about this whole story, and he will not know.»

«What if we just ask him if he has a girlfriend and see how he reacts?» Motochika suggested.

Mitsunari furrowed his brow. «If there’s the possibility that it’s a lie, we can’t be sure that he won’t keep lying. His reaction could be fake.»

Both Motochika and Ieyasu refrained from sighing by stretching or biting their lips. The fact that Mitsunari was both really protective over Sanada and deeply distrustful towards Sarutobi didn’t help at all.

«Mitsunari.» Ieyasu gently took his lover’s hand between his own, before looking up into the other’s eyes and smiling at him. «I think that it’s very kind of you to worry so much about your friend. However, if you want to help him, I’m afraid we’ll have to talk to Sarutobi, or else they’ll have to settle it by themselves.»

«That’s right, Ishida! We can do something that will make the little guy happy, look at it this way!» Motochika added with an encouraging smile.

Mitsunari kept silent for a moment. He remembered Yukimura’s sad eyes as he said how painful it was to wait without knowing what else to do. He hated taking action without being given permission, but a lot more than that he hated seeing those dear to him suffer.

«We’ll make Sarutobi reveal his true intentions,» he said, his face serious, «so that at least I can be sure of them. We’ll see if he’s as nice as you say.»

The other two smiled with relief.

 

***

 

«That’s it, we just wanted to know this. Don’t worry, as long as you don’t make up bullshit Ishida won’t come beat you up.» Motochika’d laughed. Sasuke’d just nervously curled his lips in a forced smile. «Just… don’t play with the little guy’s emotions, ok? It’s not just Ishida: we all like him, nobody wants to see him suffer.»

Sasuke’d nodded. «Neither do I, you can be sure of that.»

Oddly enough, seeing that his own indecisiveness had caused so much of a ruckus was rather satisfying: if Chousokabe had taken the time to come and talk to him after discussing it with the others only to make sure of something that, apparently, was already quite obvious, it meant either that he was considered the least trustworthy person on earth or that everyone simply cared a lot about Yukimura. He could expect the first one from Ishida, but since the others were involved too he had to guess it was the second one.

After all, Yukimura was adored by all his friends, and Sasuke had no difficulties in seeing why. He was strong and full of energy, but since he was the youngest one and, well, the smallest, the others saw him as a precious child that needed to be protected and cared for. Ishida had taken him as his little brother, Tokugawa behaved like a caring dad, Chousokabe and Maeda were more like uncles, Saika made a good big sister.

Sasuke had become part of that weird, heterogeneous family only because of Yukimura, but he liked it; he liked the way everyone had different bonds with the others, and he absolutely loved that Yukimura was dear to everyone.

That was why he was almost proud to have gotten them concerned over his behaviour.

Thinking about it, though, things would’ve probably been very different if it hadn’t been for that one detail.

Sasuke smiled to himself.

A girl.

«I have no idea where you got that from, but there aren’t any girls I’m interested in, I swear,» he’d told Chousokabe, the sincerity of his surprise written all over his face.

He was aware there were rumours about him and Kasuga dating, since they were often together and he liked to flirt with her as a joke because he was an idiot, but all those around them knew that they were just friends. And, well, anyone with eyes could see the way Kasuga had to refrain from murdering him every time he played the fool. Besides, how did it reach Chousokabe and the others? Date was the only other one between them who was still in high school, but he went to a different one, so he couldn’t know. That was a mystery worth investigating.

Not now, though. There were other priorities, now.

Finally at home, Sasuke lied on his bed, arms and legs spread open and eyes to the ceiling, the happiest and probably also the stupidest of grins on his face.

His heart was bursting with a joy so intense he could barely believe he had the right to be that happy. A funny mixture of feelings contended his attention: the surprise for the unexpected revelation, the embarrassment for not having realised before, a tiny note of distrustfulness that tried to convince him that it was all a supposition and he couldn’t afford to hope too much. His glee, however, was too great to let him care about anything else. He wanted to grab his phone and call Yukimura and immediately tell him that he loved him and that he wanted to see him. He wanted to hug him and never let go.

He remembered all the times they’d looked into each other’s eyes and he’d felt his face go warm. He remembered Yukimura’s red cheeks, and he remembered how he genuinely thought only of how beautiful his smile was. He regretted not taking Yukimura’s hand, that time; he remembered how Yukimura’d invited him to spend some more time together, and how he’d backed off like an idiot. He remembered Kasuga saying he had to ask Yukimura out properly, without pretending it was just as friends, and as an immediate connection the conversation with Chousokabe flashed through his mind.

He had to be clear about his intentions.

He’d never been, that was his mistake. Even though he knew that it wasn’t in Yukimura’s nature to take hints, he’d never found the guts to be straightforward because, just as he’d admitted to his lady friend, he was afraid of failure. He didn’t hide his longing glances, but he went back to smiling as soon as Yukimura turned towards him; he did try to flirt a little, but he laughed it off as a joke every time. He’d decided to take a step forward, but what had he actually done? Even when he thought he couldn’t keep it in anymore, he still didn’t have the courage to spill it out.

Kasuga was right, he definitely had to do something soon.

He rolled on his side and eyed at his phone on the nightstand, considering the very alluring idea of inviting Yukimura out right now. That wouldn’t do, however.  
If he’d had to wait for over a year, he wanted it to be special. Romantic, just like in those cheesy movies he happened to watch sometimes, totally not because he liked them, but because there was nothing better on TV, of course. Most importantly, though, it had to feel natural. He couldn’t just confess his feelings out of the blue like that; he wanted to take Yukimura on a nice date, to create the atmosphere, to give him hints _—_ this time much clearer ones, like finally taking his hand _—_ of what was about to happen, and only then make his move.

That sounded like a good plan, yes.

And now he had something to think about for the rest of the evening.

 

***

 

The ball bounced on the ground a few times, and Masamune, who’d just scored, didn’t pick it up. He and Yukimura were playing basketball one-on-one in the park where they’d met each other for the first time, when they were still in junior high school. They often liked to go there after school, either to play or to spar, since there was nothing they enjoyed doing together more than competing. Masamune had never practised martial arts, like Yukimura did, but he knew a thing or two about fighting and he was strong enough to keep up with the other’s skills; both of them, on the other hand, were equally fond of many sports they could afford to play in a place like that, among them football, volleyball, and, of course, basketball, so they never got bored.

«This isn’t fun,» Masamune said, folding his arms. «You’re not putting any effort into it.»

«I am!» Yukimura protested, his hands balled into fists, showing he was feeling frustrated.

The other clicked his tongue with scorn. «Don’t make me laugh! I know you can do much better than this.» While talking he’d approached his rival and pointed a finger on his chest. «Your head is somewhere else right now, and it’s been happening a lot lately.»

Yukimura’s gaze was lowered on the ground. «I… I’m sorry,» he simply said, without any attempt to justify himself. There was definitely something wrong.

Masamune looked at him for a moment, then he went to fetch the ball and without saying a word he threw it at Yukimura, who was caught a little off guard but managed to catch it anyway.

«Come on, what is it.»

«What?»

«I told you, it’s not fun like this. There’s no point in winning just because you’re not trying hard enough, you see? It’d be like playing by myself.» Masamune snorted lightly, but he didn’t sound pissed off. «So, what is it?»

Yukimura suddenly seemed to get uncomfortable, eyes captured by the orange ball in his hands. «It’s… It’s nothing important, really…»

«The hell it isn’t.» Masamune waved to gain the other’s attention and signed for him to throw the ball. «I mean, not that it’s any of my business, but it must be pretty important if it keeps you from paying attention to _me._ What I like about playing with you is that you always go all out, it’s not like you to hold back.»

They started lazily throwing the ball back and forth while Masamune spoke. Yukimura was listening, his expression extremely conflicted.

«I’m not saying we _have_ to talk right now, ok? If you want to keep it for yourself do as you like. I’m just saying that, well, in case you need it… I can lend you an ear, I guess.» Masamune averted his gaze, pretending to be indifferent. «I don’t feel like playing if you’re not gonna give it your all, anyway. So just this once.»

«Thanks.» Yukimura’s smile was a bit weak, but it mirrored genuine gratitude. It often seemed that Masamune only considered him a good challenger to play with from time to time, but he was actually very supportive _—_ he could even be incredibly mature, sometimes _—_ and Yukimura saw a good friend in him. «Sorry if I’ve been distracted, I promise I’ll try harder. I just… need to forget about someone.»

Masamune raised his brow. «Forget?»

«There’s this person that I’ve been thinking about… more than I should, but I’m banging my head against a wall, it’s… I hate giving up, but I’ve thought it over and I believe that it’s the right thing to do this time. Not that I could do much even if I wanted to, but… Anyway, the problem is that I’m not used to just— sitting around and waiting, and it’s… frustrating…»

«Well, even if you can’t do anything about this situation it doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything at all.» This time, upon receiving the ball, Masamune didn’t send it back and started bouncing it on the ground instead. «Maybe you just need a distraction. Something else to think about until you get this person out of your head. And I think I’ve got just the thing for you.»

The other looked at him with curiosity. «Really? What’s that?»

Masamune grinned. «Me.»

Yukimura smiled back, letting out a puff of air mixed with a laugh, and run towards his rival to steal the ball from him.

Masamune was right.

He just had not to think about Sasuke for a while, and all those inconvenient feelings would’ve been left behind. Everything would’ve gone back to normal. He could’ve gone back to being Sasuke’s friend without the need to worry anymore. If he kept tormenting himself, he couldn’t hope for things to change. There was only one thing he had to do: to keep Sasuke out of his head, at least for now.

It couldn’t be so difficult.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me up to this point! Chapters six and seven are my personal favourites, so I can’t wait for next week~


	6. Chapter 6

The one that followed was a rather weird week. To be more precise, that week Yukimura was rather weird. He and Sasuke were used to having lunch together, meeting in the corridors, chatting outside the classroom _—_ simply what was normal for two friends who went to school together. That week, however, Yukimura didn’t seem to talk much, so their conversations ended quickly and awkwardly too, in Sasuke’s perception; furthermore, they never got to spend lunch break together, because for one reason or another either of them was always busy. Sasuke wanted to think it was no big deal, but in fact he couldn’t help but find Yukimura’s attitude a bit suspicious; it was as if his friend were trying to avoid, if not him altogether, at least interacting with him for too long.

Could it be real or was he just imagining it? Sasuke considered it thoroughly, but he didn’t recall doing or saying anything that could make his best friend become more distant all of a sudden. He was worried that Yukimura could have heard of his conversation with Chousokabe, since that event was the only news, either from the man himself or, even worse, from Ishida: maybe some information had been distorted, even involuntarily, putting Sasuke in a bad light. The influence that the way a story was told could have on the content of the story itself was never to be underestimated.

As nervous as he was, however, he understood that he couldn’t base his suppositions on such a vague hypothesis. He should stick to the facts: Yukimura was acting strange, and he didn’t know why; but, as his friend, it was his duty to ask if something was wrong and do what he could to help him. It would’ve probably ended up being nothing that had to do specifically with him, anyway, so there was no need to be so concerned.

«Yukimura! Let’s go outside and eat lunch together.»

The bell had barely just rang, and Sasuke had already materialised in front of Yukimura’s desk, grinning widely.

«Actually, I…»

«Oh, come on, do you really have to do something so important? Can’t it wait?»

«Um…»

Sasuke looked at him in the eyes, a faint, almost shy smile on his face. «I’d like to talk for a moment, if you can.»

Yukimura bit his lip, unable to avert his gaze. «Uhh… All right, then…»

 

They were sitting under a tree in the school yard, eating in silence. So Yukimura wasn’t going to prod him to speak, uh. It probably meant he didn’t really want to have that conversation, Sasuke thought. That discouraged him a little.

He sighed and gathered all his courage.

«Is there something wrong?» he asked in a gentle tone. «You seem a bit upset.»

Yukimura hurried to shake his head. A bit too quickly, though. «Oh, no, I’m fine! Don’t worry, really!» he replied. His voice a bit too loud, though.

Sasuke moved his arms backwards to lean on both his hands, and he lifted his chin to gaze at the tree branches above their heads. «Do you think I’ll pretend to believe you and let it go just because you told me not to worry?»

Yukimura kept eating, his attention nervously fixed on his lunch box.

«You know that I won’t force you to talk if you don’t want to, but I’m a little worried. I don’t like seeing you down, and, well… in all honesty, this time I’m scared I might be the cause.» A nervous laugh left Sasuke’s lungs, while he tried without success to act cool.

He glanced at Yukimura, who was now looking at him with eyes wide open.

«But you didn’t do anything, how could it be you!» Yukimura objected, with an eagerness that surprised Sasuke and at the same time warmed his heart.

«Well, I…» Sasuke raised an arm to scratch the back of his head. «It looked like you were trying to avoid me, or something like that… Maybe I did something that offended you without realising, I don’t know.»

«There’s nothing wrong, really,» Yukimura said with a reassuring smile, and Sasuke was glad to see he had relaxed a little. «I’m sorry if I made you worry. It’s just… that I, uh… I’m not sleeping well lately, so I’m a bit tired, and… I’m just confused, sorry.» He added a small chuckle after that.

Sasuke slightly tilted his head to the side, looking deep into his friend’s eyes. «You sure it’s just that? Isn’t there anything else you want to talk about?»

Yukimura allowed himself to get lost for a brief moment in Sasuke’s eyes. Beautiful, long eyelashes, and clear hazel irises now filled with care and a tiny bit of apprehension.

He smiled, feeling much more serene now. «Yeah, it’s fine, really.»

«Well, if that’s the case you could sleep over at my place, one of these days,» Sasuke suggested, his face brightening up with a grin. «Maybe changing the atmosphere can help. And I’ll prepare you a good infusion before we go to sleep.»

«Oh.» Yukimura got uncomfortable all of a sudden. Spending the night at his friend’s place every once in a while was nothing new between them, but Yukimura’s feelings had changed a little since the last time it happened.

Sasuke, of course, noticed that his friend was awkwardly fumbling for words. «What is it?»

«No, well…» Yukimura did his best not to picture Sasuke handing him a big mug with one of his lovable smiles and then sitting down beside him on the edge of the bed, but it was already too late. His cheeks turned red, and he started stuttering even more. «Uhh… I… I-it’s that…»

Sasuke let out a deep, hopeless sigh, closing his eyes for a moment.

«Yukimura,» he said, and Yukimura turned his head just in time to see two hands grabbing his head and Sasuke’s face getting very, very close all of a sudden. Their foreheads touched, and the two friends were staring into each other’s eyes. Yukimura’s heart was beating like crazy.

«You’re a dummy.»

Yukimura blinked before furrowing his brow, both surprised and a bit offended. «Wha—!»

Sasuke giggled, and pressed their foreheads together even tighter.

«You need to stop worrying so much,» he said with the warmest of smiles. «Whatever it is that you’re worrying about, because you’re obviously worrying too much. Ok?»

Yukimura didn’t know what to say, and to be fair he didn’t even know what to make of his own feelings. His brain had just stopped functioning, leaving him with the only awareness that Sasuke’s face was incredibly close and that his smile was way too beautiful.

He gave a weak nod, unable to take his gaze away. He had the impression that they stayed like that for quite a while, but he couldn’t be sure, as lost in those warm hazel eyes as he was.

Until, unexpectedly, Sasuke moved an inch away and headbutted him lightly, finally drawing a laugh out of him.

 

***

 

Kasuga often wondered what it was that kept her tied to Sasuke. He was annoying, incredibly annoying _—_ and he’d been from the very start, she couldn’t even use the excuse that he looked nice at first. He was irritating, intrusive, a smug bastard who thought too highly of himself, and he had this ridiculous habit of treating her like his girlfriend as if that joke hadn’t stopped being funny after the first time he’d tried it. And yet there she was, listening to him moping once again while they hanged around in town, on the brink of losing her patience but, despite everything, still willing to be a good friend for him. Friendship sure is something mysterious, she thought.

«I mean, this is just weird, right? So what if the others were wrong?»

«You said that you agreed with them,» Kasuga replied with a snort.

«Yeah, because in that moment I probably was too happy to be objective! But all things considered it’s not that obvious, you know? You can never be sure…»

Kasuga hit him on the shoulder so hard that the people around them turned towards the direction that weird whimper had come from, a bit worried.

«Yes, you can never know, that’s what dates are for!» the girl snapped. «I can’t believe we’re back at square one again, I thought you’d learnt your lesson!»

Sasuke was massaging his shoulder, and he wisely decided not to answer back; due the lack of other complains, Kasuga was able to calm down, releasing a distressed sigh.

«Listen, I understand that you keep being afraid of being rejected because you’ve been friends since you were kids,» she said, crossing her arms and going back to walking, «but I told you, you have to stop this back and forth you’re doing. Make a decision and stick to it. You can’t say that you think he likes you and that you want to take a decisive step, and then change your mind just because he hasn’t talked much to you lately. He has a life, you know, it’s not like everything revolves around you.»

They’d already had similar conversations more than once, Sasuke noticed. No wonder Kasuga was so fed up with his excuses.

«It’s normal to have doubts on how another person feels towards you,» the girl continued. «And that’s exactly what dates are for, to find out. You give the other person the occasion to consider what it’d be like to be with you, and it’s your occasion to make a good impression.»

«Isn’t every day an occasion to make a good impression, though?» Sasuke tried to remark.

Kasuga’s brow creased. «Yes, but if you don’t make it clear that you want _his_ attention it’s only obvious he won’t notice, isn’t it?»

Sasuke released a deep sigh. He knew his friend was right, and yet he still didn’t feel like surrendering. «What a drag… It’s not my fault if he doesn’t get it, honestly…»

«Well maybe it’s not his fault if you don’t make him get it,» Kasuga replied sharply. She didn’t even know Yukimura too well, but she was absolutely sure that Sarutobi couldn’t be completely innocent, as dumb as he was. «Why do you think everyone was so concerned? Maybe you think you were being so straightforward when you actually weren’t.»

She was right, she was right on everything, and her last words were the ones that hit the spot and brought Sasuke to finally admit his defeat.

«You mean…»

«I mean,» Kasuga completed for him, «that if you don’t ask him out on this damn date you’re going to lose your chance sooner or later.»

 

***

 

Forgetting about someone so dear wasn’t as easy as he’d tried to make it look, Yukimura thought. He couldn’t just spend less time with Sasuke and hope that what had been tormenting him for the past months would’ve simply gone away in the blink of an eye. Furthermore, his behaviour had made Sasuke worry, which was nothing but mean: Sasuke had no fault, except that of being the loveliest person on earth, he didn’t deserve to be dragged into Yukimura’s problems.

The young Sanada let out a big sigh to loosen up a little, and he picked up his sports bag, ready to go to the gym for his karate lesson.

Mitsunari’d promised that it would’ve gone away, and Masamune’d told him to think about something else in the meantime. He just had to do that, wait and distract himself, nothing else. He was confident he could make it.

 

At the end of the lesson, Yukimura was holding an ice pack on his hip, and he was getting a little rest on one of the benches in the changing room while the other students were quickly taking off their karategi to get home for dinner. Their teacher often reproached Yukimura for not working enough on his defence, and this was the result: he had missed to parry a kick to his side while sparring with a fellow pupil. It wasn’t the first time someone had gotten hurt, it definitely wasn’t the first time he’d gotten hurt, and it hadn’t even been a particularly strong blow, since his sparring partner had been able to hold back when he’d seen his kick would’ve landed. The training had continued without any interruption, apart from Shingen’s loud scolding and Yukimura’s just as loud “Yes, master Shingen!” in reply to every remark from his admired teacher. Still, some ice wasn’t certainly going to hurt.

«I’m fine,» Yukimura complained for the third time when Sasuke sat down next to him after having changed.

«Let me see,» Sasuke said, and Yukimura moved his hand away to let the other inspect the reddened skin exposed by his opened karategi.

Sasuke pretended to take a long, careful look, only to slyly press a finger on the offended spot, making Yukimura flinch.

«See?» Sasuke said with a smirk. «It’s nothing, but it’s still better to keep that for a little while.»

Yukimura pouted, but he went back to holding the ice pack on his side, defeated.

«We can go home after it gets warmer, ok? Those things don’t last long, don’t worry.»

Yukimura turned to look at his friend. «We?»

Sasuke pretended to be offended. «You don’t really think I’ll leave you here alone, do you?»

Yukimura chuckled, and Sasuke pinched his cheek.

In a short time all the other male students said goodbye to their friends and went home, leaving Sasuke and Yukimura as the only ones in the changing room.

«How’s that thing?»

«It’s starting to get a little warmer, I think.»

«Then another five minutes and we can go, ok?» Sasuke said, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning his back against the wall.

Yukimura groaned. «That’s a lot of time…»

«What, don’t you like being here alone with me?» the other said with a snicker.

Yukimura knew it was a joke, but he blushed anyway. He didn’t reply, too scared to let out how much he actually liked it. With nobody around, he would’ve liked to get closer to Sasuke and snuggle up to him. Maybe even give him a kiss. He wondered how soft Sasuke’s lips would’ve felt against his own _—_ he just wished to touch them lightly, nothing more… But he couldn’t allow himself to indulge in that kind of thoughts, or his mind would’ve exploded.

They chatted and laughed for a while; every time Yukimura eyed at Sasuke, though, he couldn’t escape from noticing how gorgeous he was, how funny he was, how intelligent he was, how incredibly kind and thoughtful and lovable, and everything else Yukimura adored in him.

They kept chatting, until Sasuke touched the hand that was holding the ice pack and asked “Be honest, are you ok? Does it hurt?” with such a tenderness in his voice and in his features that Yukimura felt something extremely weird, because for some reason he felt like tearing up.

He couldn’t bear the pain of keeping his feelings hidden, but he became aware that at the same time he couldn’t just push them aside. How could he extinguish flames that were burning so intensely inside of him? How could he stop loving a person he loved so much?

He replied that it didn’t hurt at all, and Sasuke smiled.

Honestly, how could he stop loving that smile?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more you know: karategi is the name of the uniform for karate practitioners (who are called karateka).
> 
> I'm so happy we've finally gotten to this part of the story, I hope you're enjoying!~


	7. Chapter 7

In the end he couldn’t do it. Sasuke wanted to finally ask Yukimura out, that evening at the gym; he couldn’t believe he’d really had the luck to find himself alone with the other, and yet he hadn’t found the courage to say a word because he felt like it wasn’t the right time. Again.

He did feel embarrassed by his own weakness, to be honest. He was usually the one who could make it out of any situation and had a solution for every problem. Being this helpless was a first for him. And, even though he felt heat rise to his ears at the sole thought of saying it out loud, he was perfectly aware of the reason: he was madly, hopelessly in love with that dork, and every time he saw his smile his knees felt weak, and the idea of trying to put what he felt into words made his precious rationality completely useless.

However, that was going to be his last missed chance, he decided. It was already Friday, almost a week had passed since what he had fun calling “the cheese-cake incident” _—_ although it was nowhere near an incident, and the poor cheese-cake had nothing to do with it. He wasn’t going to waste any more time. He wanted to go up to Kasuga and proudly tell her he finally did it, he wanted to see her unimpressed face and hear some sarcastic comment on how it was about time, and laugh at it because she was right; but, above everything else, he wanted to be alone with Yukimura even just for a moment, take his hands and tell him that he loved him.

He’d been preparing those words: “I like you, Yukimura, I’m in love with you.” He’d been practicing, lately, he’d tried to repeat them in his mind, so that maybe he could avoid stuttering in the moment he would have to say it out loud. He wanted it to come out naturally, to make it sound like the most ordinary thing in the world, because that described how he felt _—_ like loving Yukimura fit just perfectly into his life. Now that he’d decided (this time for real, hopefully) to take the decisive step, he really wanted to tell him that. Or to let him know through his actions, because maybe actually explaining it would’ve been a little too cheesy.

Amusingly enough, though, he’d been preparing those words and not the ones he had to say before, to actually ask the other out, which was something a lot easier and yet for some reason just thinking about it made his decisiveness waver.

Still, he was confident everything would’ve gone for the best. No, well, actually he barely hoped so, but he had to lie to himself or he would’ve never been able to open his mouth in front of Yukimura.

He settled for the following day, at school: no retreats this time.

 

***

 

It turned out to be a lot harder than he’d imagined, mainly because he’d avoided imagining it altogether. Classes were going to start soon and he didn’t have much time to waste with chitchat, he had to get straight to the point.

Yukimura was as lovely as usual, making things even more difficult.

«There’s such a big bruise now,» he was saying with a giggle, since Sasuke had naturally asked him how his side was doing. «I’ll have to practise more.»

«You’ll have to pay more attention,» Sasuke remarked, ruffling his friend’s hair. His stomach hurt so badly he wondered how come he hadn’t fallen on his knees yet.

«Hey!» Yukimura laughed, moving Sasuke’s hand away.

Despite his heart beating so fast, Sasuke wasn’t sure his brain was receiving enough blood to function properly, because he felt incredibly dizzy.

«Say, Yukimura.» His mouth spoke on its own.

«Hm?»

«Are you free tomorrow?» Sasuke asked at once, before he could even realise what he’d said, and even though he still had to get to the hardest part he felt like a ridiculously huge weigh had just been lifted from his chest.

Yukimura raised his brow, surprised. «I wanted to ask you the same thing! Ieyasu invited us at his place for dinner, and then to watch a movie or something.»

_Great timing, Tokugawa, thanks._

Sasuke forced a smile. «Sounds fun. Who’s coming?»

«There’s Mitsunari and probably Motochika.»

«Maeda and Saika aren’t coming?»

«Mitsunari said they already had plans.»

Sasuke almost burst out laughing. Had he been less indecisive, Yukimura would’ve had to tell Ishida he already had plans too. Sasuke still found it difficult to believe this was happening after all it’d taken to get there. He hadn’t even gotten to the hardest part, in the end. That was almost something to be happy about, actually _—_ but no, damn it, he wasn’t happy at all!

«So… do you want to come?» Yukimura asked. He looked a bit worried, and Sasuke realised that probably he’d been too silent.

He grinned, this time putting more enthusiasm in it. «Only if it’s not going to be another Disney movie like last time!»

«What’s wrong with Disney movies?!»

 

***

 

«So they’re both coming?» Motochika asked.

Mitsunari hummed affirmatively, not raising his eyes from the surface of his cup of tea.

«And Sanada didn’t tell you about any new… developments?»

«No.»

«And you think it’s a good idea to… you know, have them both here with us?»

«Why, do you think it’s a bad idea, Motochika?» Ieyasu intervened, before Mitsunari lost his nerves for all those questions.

«Nah, not really.» The guest stood up from the sofa where he was sprawled and joined the other two in the kitchen. «I just don’t want it to be awkward for them, that’s all.»

«If nothing new has happened it will be no different from every other time,» Ieyasu replied with a reassuring smile, while he was washing some vegetables in the sink. «Hey, can you do me a favour? Peel and cut those carrots for me, please. Thanks.»

«You may be right, but Sarutobi knows that we know, now,» Motochika objected, taking place in front of the counter and getting to work. «And we know that he knows. And Sanada still doesn’t know anything—»

«Will you stop with this useless blabbering?» Mitsunari snorted. «We always spend time together like this, there’s nothing unusual about it. Yukimura is happy to come, and if Sarutobi has something to feel uneasy about he could’ve simply declined.»

«That’s true, but…»

«There’s nothing more to say on the matter, this conversation is over.»

Motochika sighed silently, eyes fixed on the blade of the kitchen knife he was using.

«He’s just as concerned as you, don’t worry,» said Ieyasu, glancing at his friend.

«If you want to say something speak for yourself, Ieyasu, don’t have the arrogance to do it in my place,» Mitsunari reproached, irritated, before taking a long sip from his mug.

Of course he was concerned. He’d been since the very start, since he sensed that something was going on between Yukimura and that other guy.

Yukimura was as precious as a little brother to him. He was the very first friend (and for a while the only one too) Mitsunari was able to make after moving in with his uncles. He was ten at the time, and the son of his new neighbours was six. It was even before he got to meet Ieyasu and all the others: of course he was attached to the little guy, and of course he was worried.

In fact, he had hoped that Sarutobi would refuse the invitation: Yukimura would’ve been able to relax a little, without the other guy’s presence. From what Chousokabe had told, it seemed that Sarutobi was truly interested in taking a step forward, sooner or later; Mitsunari would’ve made sure to make him pay for every second he let go by while Yukimura’s heart ached because of him, but what he could do in the meantime was to help the little guy divert his mind. That was one of the reasons behind the plans for that evening, actually. Spending time together, having fun with friends, not thinking about his feelings.

But Sarutobi had nothing to be ashamed of, apparently, if he was fine with staying in a room full of people who knew he still hadn’t resolved the misunderstanding that was making Yukimura suffer. Mitsunari’d never wanted to punch him in the face like he did now.

«It’s all right, Mitsunari,» Ieyasu’s voice said. Mitsunari turned his head just in time to receive a kiss on the forehead from his boyfriend. «There’s nothing different from all the other times, right? I’m sure we’ll all have fun, and Sanada will be fine too.»

«I know,» Mitsunari grumbled, «I’ve just said the same thing.»

 

***

 

After a long, satisfied sigh, Yukimura got up and started clearing the table; Motochika – incredibly enough, without anyone prodding him to do so _—_ got up as well to lend him a hand.

«All right,» said Sasuke, clapping his hands once, «dessert time!»

Yukimura beamed.

Before coming over to Ieyasu’s, the two of them had met at Sasuke’s place to make something they could bring as a dessert, which had become a sort of tradition when the crew gathered to eat together at somebody’s house, since it had turned out that Sarutobi was not only a discreet cook but a rather good confectioner too. This time he’d opted for something simple, though, and with the help of his friend _—_ meaning that Yukimura did little more than handing him what he needed _—_ he’d prepared a bowl of fresh fruit cut into pieces and put in peach syrup.

Sasuke went to open the fridge and took the dessert out; Motochika laid five small bowls on the table, one for of each of them, while Yukimura took care of the little spoons, and Sasuke started serving.

«What’s in it?» asked Ieyasu, giving a pleased glance to the warm colours in his bowl.

«Peaches, apricots, bananas,» Yukimura started to list, while he went back to his place at the table, «uhh, prunes…»

«Pineapple and melon,» Sasuke concluded for him, a proud grin curling his lips.

«You mixed quite a lot of different things,» commented Mitsunari, a little distrustful. The spoonful he put in his mouth didn’t seem to displease him, however, and Yukimura was very happy to notice that.

They all started eating, and everyone was content with the result.

«I still don’t like apricots, though,» Yukimura said, pulling a face after eating a piece of said fruit. Sasuke snickered without saying anything, because that was already the fifth time he’d heard that kind of comment that day, and he still found funny the pouty face Yukimura made every time.

Motochika gladly offered to let the little Sanada dump in his bowl all the pieces of apricot he found, since he liked them, and Yukimura couldn’t believe he’d been so lucky as to find a saviour. Ieyasu gave his opinion and said that apricots actually went well with the peaches, while Mitsunari _—_ once he realised that the others’ eyes were on him, expecting something _—_ had to agree with Yukimura, observing that apricots had a different texture from all the rest and felt a bit weird.

Sasuke found himself thinking that apricots were truly a quality topic for a discussion.

«What movie are we going to watch?» asked Yukimura, who was already finishing his portion.

«We were thinking about _Indiana Jones_ ,» replied Motochika with a smirk. «We just need to decide which one.»

« _The Last Crusade_!» Yukimura immediately exclaimed, and his suggestion was followed by a choir of agreeing noises. The only one who kept silent was Mitsunari, who didn’t really mind what they were doing as long as the atmosphere was peaceful.

«So be it, then,» Motochika said solemnly. «Hey, Sarutobi, is there more?»

«As much as you like,» Sasuke replied, eying at the big bowl in the middle of the table.

«We could finish it while watching the movie,» Motochika suggested as he stood up. «I’m going to set the TV ready.»

The others stood up as well, but when Mitsunari moved to clear the table Sasuke stopped him.

«Don’t worry,» he said, «you two just take the bowls to the living room and leave the rest to me and Yukimura.»

Mitsunari studied his expression for a few seconds.

«Oh,» Ieyasu was replying, «but there’s no need to…»

«It’s all right, it’s all right,» Sasuke insisted, taking the bowl of fruit salad and placing it into Tokugawa’s hands with a wide grin, «we’re gonna take good care of your kitchen, I promise.»

In the meantime Mitsunari had made a pile of the smaller bowls, each with its own spoon in it, and he lifted it with due care.

«Come on, Ieyasu,» he said simply. Before turning towards the door, however, his eyes stopped on Sarutobi for a brief moment.

Sasuke noticed, of course, and he understood everything that glance meant: don’t make me regret it, don’t touch my child, don’t you dare do anything stupid. Not that Ishida needed to worry, though, because sure as hell he wasn’t going to confess in a moment like this, completely out of the blue and with other people in the next room. He just… wanted to have a few seconds of peace with Yukimura, that was it. A bit selfish, true, and lacking a real reason as well, but it wasn’t too much of a request, right?

Mitsunari and Ieyasu left the kitchen, while Yukimura had already begun to clear the table, taking the dishes to the sink.

«I’ll do the dishes,» he said, «while you clean the table from crumbles and swipe the floor, all right?»

«Yes, sir!»

Yukimura was terrible at doing housework, but he always put a lot of effort into it. He liked being helpful, and he was so happy with lending a hand that he often ended up not paying enough attention to the result _—_ partly also due to the fact that he ignored just how much of a disaster he was, especially in the kitchen. He was content with doing his best and always striving to do better, anyway.

«You need to use a bit less soap and stroke harder,» Sasuke suggested, bending over his friend’s shoulder.

Yukimura noticed they were so close he could smell the nice scent of Sasuke's shampoo, and he blushed a little. «Got it.»

Sasuke swayed his hips a little to let his side jokingly bump Yukimura’s as he got back to swiping the floor, and they both giggled. Yukimura, however, was starting to feel funny. Heat was rising to his face and his heartbeat was growing louder all of a sudden. Nothing new, he tried to convince himself, nothing to fret about _—_ except this kind of thing (having these reactions) was something that always shook him as if it were the first time, so he couldn’t quite avoid fretting about it. He definitely needed to calm down.

Not even half a minute later Sasuke was checking again on him, and this time Yukimura had the impression that he’d gotten even closer, because the other’s chest was clearly pressing against his back.

«How is it?» Yukimura asked, turning his head to the side and begging his stomach to stop hurting. Too bad his heart flipped right away, because Sasuke’s face was close. Particularly close.

«Perfect,» Sasuke said, but he wasn’t looking at the dishes: his eyes were locked with Yukimura’s, who found himself unable to move a muscle. He couldn’t even feel his body anymore.

«I-is that…» he uttered, but his voice broke when he saw that Sasuke was slowly leaning in.

Yukimura closed his eyes, and with a small, shaky sigh he lifted his chin, relishing the sensation of warm lips on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 <3 <3


	8. Chapter 8

The kiss lasted a mere few seconds: Yukimura immediately pulled away, moving a couple of steps backwards to put as much distance as the small kitchen allowed between himself and Sasuke.

«Wh— What— Th-that was—» he stuttered, unable to complete even one sentence since his brain was in tilt. «Damn it! What was that? What?!»

Sasuke tried to say something, but Yukimura barely heard what it was. He was too busy freaking out.

«Gosh, I’m so sorry! That was so wrong, I’m sorry! I don’t know what happened, just— please forget it!»

«What is happening here?» Mitsunari appeared at the door, arms crossed and eyes quickly scanning the scene.

«Nothing, some water got on the floor,» Sasuke swiftly replied, grabbing a cloth and kneeling down to wipe the drops of water and soap that had actually fallen down when the younger one had basically jumped away from him.

Yukimura was speechless. He felt dazed and confused. He looked at Mitsunari, who seemed like he was waiting to hear something from him, and he realised that this time he couldn’t tell the truth even if he wanted to: it was way, way too embarrassing.

«Y-yeah, I… It’s my fault, sorry,» he said, looking away and scratching his cheek  _—_ only to regret it on the spot, because his hands were still wet, and they weren’t exactly clean either.

Mitsunari let his gaze slide from Yukimura to Sasuke, then back to Yukimura, without saying a word. He didn’t seem too convinced, and Yukimura was already preparing himself to find explanations and excuses for what had actually happened, persuaded that the truth was right about to be discovered; if Mitsunari had any doubts, however, he kept them for himself, because he didn’t investigate any further.

«Hurry up and come over here,» he said instead. «Motochika is finishing the fruit salad all by himself.»

«That’s not true!» a laughing voice replied from the living room.

«Here, I’ll help.» Mitsunari reached the sink and started wiping with a cloth the dishes that had already been cleaned, but before that he didn’t spare Sasuke a very disapproving look.

Yukimura had simply gone back to washing the dishes in silence, his expression clearly bothered.

Sasuke shook his head with a mute sigh, and went back to his work as well.

 

***

 

What the hell had gotten into him? What the hell was that? Confessing there and then would’ve been stupid, but a kiss out of the blue was fine? Bullshit! He was a complete disaster!

It was late night. Sasuke had been rolling over in his bed and releasing frustrated sighs since he’d gotten home, unable to fall asleep.

He had kissed Yukimura. He could hardly believe it. He didn’t even know how it happened: one moment he was merrily swiping the floor, joking around with his best friend as always, and the moment after that he was feeling irresistibly attracted to Yukimura’s lips. Now that he thought about it, it had probably been that sudden closeness: not that it was completely unusual for them, but for some reason his brain had stopped functioning for a second, allowing him to take the most regrettable decision he could take that night.

Ahh, it wasn’t supposed to go like that… It was supposed to be romantic and with almost no room for failure, he had it all planned out! And what did he have now? Yukimura had barely spoken to him for the rest of the night. Sasuke wanted to try and talk to him, once outside the apartment building where Tokugawa lived, but Yukimura seemed eager to leave, so he just let go. When they said goodnight and parted, Yukimura didn’t even look at him in the eyes.

Sasuke rolled over once more, curling up on his side and making another frustrated noise.

The others had pretended not to notice the awkwardness between the two of them, luckily; Ishida was probably the one who suspected him the most, but thanks to some kind of miracle he didn’t do much more than sending him silent death threats in the form of cold glares from time to time, when nobody else was paying attention. Probably only to “protect Yukimura’s honour”, knowing him (otherwise he wouldn’t have hesitated to expose Sasuke’s misdeeds). He had also held Yukimura, who had snuggled next to him on the sofa, closer than usual, keeping an arm on his shoulders  _—_ a thing that Sasuke’d found amusing, even in that sort of situation, because they looked like a cub and his mother.

And now? What was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t stop thinking about Yukimura’s reaction. True, that kiss had been unexpected, so a bit of surprise was legitimate, but rejecting him like that? What was that supposed to mean?

_That was so wrong, I’m sorry! I don’t know what happened, just— please forget it!_

He could hear Yukimura’s panicked voice loud and clear in his memories. And he couldn’t deny that it hurt a little. Didn’t Yukimura feel the same way he did? After all, he did let Sasuke kiss him at first. Then why say it was wrong? Why apologise, if it had been Sasuke who kissed him in the first place?

Ugh, he’d been such, such an idiot! He’d ruined everything so stupidly!

He sat up so quickly his vision clouded for a couple of seconds. He needed to talk to Yukimura. He needed to apologise first, and then explain himself, and then gather all his courage and ask Yukimura for explanations. He needed to know, or he wasn’t going to get any sleep anytime soon.

The following day he didn’t dare call or write to Yukimura, preferring to leave his friend his own space instead. He did hope to receive a message from him all day, and he kept glancing at his phone with impatience. Despite not seriously expecting to get anything, however, he felt a wave of bitter disappointment when he actually didn’t.

Monday was going to be the day. He had no idea what would happen, but he was determined to settle this matter. He couldn’t bear the pain of having ruined his most precious friendship any longer.

 

«Yukimura!» By a stroke of luck he bumped into his friend before the lessons started, in front of the vending machines on the first floor. His stomach twisted, but nevertheless he smiled and waved.

Upon seeing him, Yukimura widened his eyes, turned away, and ran in the opposite direction.

Sasuke blinked a couple of times. What?

«Hey!» he yelled, springing forward to run after the other. He had no intention of letting this chance slip away too. «Yukimura, wait, please!»

They followed the turn of the hallway, and Yukimura started running upstairs. A clever move, for his part: Sasuke was faster than him, but Yukimura had more stamina. They kept going up, and staircase after staircase Sasuke could see the distance between them slowly getting wider. Yukimura couldn’t keep climbing forever, though.

When he was almost at the top, Sasuke saw the other disappear beyond the door that led to the roof. He allowed himself to slow down a little, since at that point he was out of breath, and as he got to the last steps he was walking. He went through the door and closed it behind his back, panting heavily and taking a look around. Yukimura was sitting on the floor, in a corner, arms laced around his legs and face hidden in his knees. Sasuke couldn’t choose between finding it weird or extremely adorable. Or both.

He approached him cautiously, having no clue of what the other’s next reaction could’ve been since running away itself was something he wasn’t expecting. He crouched down next to his friend.

«Yukimura…?» he called, as softly as he could.

Yukimura slowly raised his head; his face was bright red, and Sasuke hardly resisted the impulse to tackle him with a tight hug.

«Good morning,» he said, smiling warmly.

Yukimura blinked once before slightly lifting the corners of his mouth, a bit awkward. «Good morning.»

«Listen, I…» Sasuke then began, scratching the back of his head because all of a sudden he was growing nervous. «Look, I know that maybe this is not the best time to have this conversation, but… it’s important for me that you know this. Saturday, I… I absolutely meant that. The kiss.» He could feel the blood throbbing in his head, as his racing heart urged him to hurry and say what he had to say. Not even running a marathon required this much effort, damn. «It may have been a bad timing and everything, and I’ll apologise all you want, but I meant that. Ok?» He breathed out. «Ok.»

Yukimura had been listening in silence, and not once he had relaxed, nor the colour of his face had changed. He kept tormenting his lower lip with his teeth, and his eyebrows were knit in some kind of worried expression. He looked like he wanted to say something, but since he was struggling to find the words Sasuke decided to continue.

«It’s fine, I don’t need an answer right now if you don’t have it. The bell’s gonna ring soon anyway, so.» He forced a laugh, giving a quick glance at the door. «I just really needed to tell you this. But, say…» He sighed deeply to release at least a bit of all the tension that was making speaking so difficult. «How about we, uh… meet after school? We can, I don’t know… have a walk or something. If you want to.»

He’d lowered his gaze at one point, so he lifted it again to study Yukimura’s reaction, hopeful and horribly scared at the same time. His friend seemed like he was paralysed, mouth agape and stare fixed into Sasuke’s eyes like that of a lost puppy. Sasuke let out a long sigh, dropping his head for a moment before raising it up again with a tender smile.

«All right.» He got on his feet. «I’ll be waiting at the vending machines on the first floor, if you want to come. Don’t be late for class, ok?»

He winked, his usual grin now back on his face; then he turned and headed towards the door, the smile already gone.

 

***

 

Back leaning on the wall and arms crossed over his chest, Sasuke was trying really hard to act cool while he begged his heart to stop beating so fast. He could say he had already confessed, in a way, right? Then why was he so agitated? He thought that after asking Yukimura out everything would’ve gone smoothly, more or less.

All right, yeah, he hadn’t really asked him out  _—_ but he’d done much more than that, to be honest. And yet there he was, still waiting for a reply and not even certain that he would’ve gotten one, since he himself had given Yukimura the opportunity to just ditch him without even letting him know: from the younger one’s class it wasn’t necessary to get past there to get out of the building. He’d chosen that place on purpose, because he wanted to make Yukimura feel at ease, without compelling him to accept his invitation  _—_ though now that the waiting was revealing itself to be so stressing he was starting to regret this decision a little.

Besides, he wasn’t even sure of what to say. He had so many questions, but what if they ended up making Yukimura feel cornered? His friend had run away at the sole sight of him, after all. What was Sasuke supposed to do? For a brief second he considered retreating, asking Yukimura to forget everything and going back to being friends like before, but he quickly cast the thought away: he couldn’t give up now that he was so close. Kasuga would kill him if he did.

«Sasuke!»

Sasuke raised his head, and saw Yukimura running towards him. He couldn’t refrain from smiling with relief.

«Sorry if I made you wait,» Yukimura said, trying to catch his breath, once they were in front of each other.

«It’s ok,» the other replied. «Shall we go?»

 

Walking side by side on the sidewalk, both of them had kept silent since they left the school building. Sasuke didn’t know where to begin from, and Yukimura didn’t seem intentioned to be the one to start the conversation.

Sasuke took a deep breath and finally looked at his friend. «So, um… It’s probably a stupid question, but, uh, I need to ask you or I’ll go crazy trying to wrap my head around it.» He giggled nervously, before going on. «About the other night, well… Why did you pull back? I mean, it’s ok, be honest, I just want to know why.»

Yukimura’s stare was stubbornly fixed on the tips of his shoes, which were moving step after step on the concrete, and his face was all red just like that morning. He didn’t say anything for a while, lips tightly pressed together and eyebrows furrowed. Just as Sasuke had anticipated (and feared), he was feeling uncomfortable.

«Because it was a mistake,» he finally replied, looking to the side to hide his face from the other. «Or... that’s what I thought in that moment, at least, and a part of me is telling me that I should keep thinking so, but now…» He brought a hand to the back of his head and started playing with some locks of his own hair, visibly struggling. «After what you said this morning, I’m… I don’t know, Sasuke, I’m so confused!»

Sasuke stared at him with a puzzled look on his face. Who was the confused one again?

«What do you…»

«I mean…» Yukimura finally turned to look at him, halting all of a sudden. «You… you— kissed me, and that could mean a thing or two, maybe, I don’t know  _—_ but then you said that you mean it, and I guess that can only mean one thing, but then… but then what about Kasuga?»

There was a long moment of silence. Yukimura almost looked mad, as determined as his expression was. Sasuke didn’t manage to do much more than blinking a few times, dazed.

«What?» he said then.

«Kasuga!» Yukimura repeated. «You like her, don’t you?»

Oh. _Oh._

All the dots connected in Sasuke’s mind. Now everything was starting to make sense. Now everything made _a lot_ of sense.

So much that he burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After many misunderstandings, it's finally time for some explaining (lol)!  
> Next chapter is going to be very fluffy, so I hope you'll look forward to it! Thanks for reading up to here~ <3


	9. Chapter 9

«I can’t believe— Where does this come from now?»

Yukimura was shocked and furious. He’d gathered all his courage to spit out what was tormenting him, and Sasuke was making fun of him!

«Y-you said it!» he replied, a slight crease between his eyebrows and hands balled into fists. He was so embarrassed he wanted to dash away and hide in his room for a week straight.

«But it was a joke!» Sasuke was cracking up. «Man, it was obviously a joke, and I said it two years ago!»

Yukimura held his breath and blinked in confusion. What? A joke? No, impossible… He needed time to elaborate.

«I can’t believe you took me seriously…» Sasuke was saying, as he gradually calmed down. He had tears in his eyes, the jerk. «I mean, I know you’re naïve, but this…! This is too much, how did you even…»

Yukimura pouted, crossing his arms and looking away, a bit offended. Damn, this was really embarrassing…

«I never even mentioned it anymore! How could you still believe it after all this time?»

«I… I don’t know, ok? You said you liked her and I just believed you!»

«So you believe anything I say?»

«Of course I do, you’re my friend!»

Sasuke went silent all of a sudden, and Yukimura eyed at him: he looked like he wasn’t expecting a reply like that. His traits then softened, and a sweet smile bloomed on his lips. Yukimura’s heart flipped.

«You’re so silly,» said Sasuke, raising one hand and placing it on the top of Yukimura’s head, ruffling his hair a little. «But technically it’s my fault too, so… I’m sorry.»

Yukimura loosened up, gazing at that wonderful smile and abandoning himself to the familiar sensation of warmth that was spreading in his chest.

«Wanna go to the park?» Sasuke suggested, and Yukimura nodded happily.

There was so much going on inside Yukimura’s head, at the moment. Thoughts, emotions, everything was confused and at the same time loud and clear. He had just discovered that what had been making his heart ache awfully for months simply wasn’t true, it had never been. He’d found out that the reason why Sasuke had kissed him  _—_ a question which had kept his mind occupied for two whole days and one horrible, restless night  _—_ was… yeah, apparently it was that. Or so it seemed. It still had to sink in.

«So, um…» he began, lowering his gaze to the concrete again. «You… So you… You mean that…»

«I like you,» Sasuke finished for him. He then let out a hopeless sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers and shaking his head. «Man, this is so uncool! It wasn’t supposed to be like this… I wanted to do it properly, but in the end it turned out kinda awkward, didn’t it?»

Yukimura wasn’t even paying attention anymore. Sasuke liked him. Sasuke said that he liked him. He felt like he needed to yell.

«Yukimura?» the other called, and Yukimura startled.

«Yes!»

«You were spacing out.»

«Oh! Yeah, sorry, I just…» he tried to say, but for some reason words stopped coming out of his mouth and he blushed even harder than he already was.

A brief giggle. «Come here.»

Arms wrapped around his shoulders and he was pulled against a warm chest.

«You’re too nervous, come on,» Sasuke’s voice said, snickering. «Things have been like this for two years now, it’s not like it’s any different from—»

Without leaving the embrace, Yukimura pulled away enough to look at Sasuke with wide eyes. «What?»

Sasuke returned the stare with arched eyebrows, blinked once, and then sighed. «So you really had no idea, had you? I mean, not that I can blame you entirely, but…»

«What do you mean two years?» Yukimura uttered, covering his mouth and nose with both hands in disbelief. He was getting too many revelations for just one day, he couldn’t just process them all as if it were nothing. Two years? He’d only been struggling for a few months and was already on the brink of going crazy, how could Sasuke have resisted that much time? And did it mean that when he fell for his friend the other was already… thinking of him that way? Did it mean that he’d literally been fussing over issues that didn’t exist at all?

«I mean, more or less… Maybe a little less… No, all right, definitely less. It’s just that it, uhh… feels like a lifetime, so…»

«But two years are a lot of time!»

«I guess… But what about you, then?» Sasuke then realised that maybe he’d gone a bit too far: Yukimura still had to say anything about his own feelings, technically. He stretched his mouth in a regretful expression. «Oh, uh… Sorry. Say, um... How about we go to the park and do it all over from the start, mh? Come on, let’s go.»

He turned and moved one step forward, but Yukimura immediately grabbed his arm.

«Wait a second!»

Sasuke looked at him.

«You said you like me, right?» Yukimura seemed a bit nervous, but his face showed determination.

«Y-yeah…»

«Then this means I can kiss you, right?»

Sasuke blinked once. And, much to his own surprise and disappointment, he felt his face get hot.

«What kind of question is that, you dummy?» he replied laughing.

He was pretty sure Yukimura’s smile had never been as bright as when he leaped forward, cupped his face with both hands, and dragged him down for a kiss.

 

«Ok, so. Wanna go first?»

They were sitting on a bench in a quiet area of the park, far enough from the playground and the basketball court. It was very pretty too: there were lots of trees, huge bushes some of which were studded with beautiful flowers, and the lawn was crossed by the smooth curves of lanes of white gravel. With the warm light of the late afternoon, the colours looked wonderful.

Yukimura shook his head, flustered. «No, you first.»

Sasuke giggled briefly; he sighed, leaned one arm on the back-rest of the bench, and looked up, gaze wandering among the leaves of the tree branches upon their heads.

«Well, there’s not much to add… It happened because of a kiss, I think. It was my birthday, you gave me this big smooch on the cheek and then you smiled, and… Ok, now that I’m saying it out loud it sounds pretty stupid. It wasn’t even the first time, and you basically go around giving kisses to everyone, so…»

«Is that weird?» Yukimura asked, a bit worried. He did like showing his love for his closest friends with lots of hugs and kisses, but he’d never given much thought to it. It was a spontaneous demonstration of affection, for him.

Sasuke smiled and shook his head. «Not at all. It’s cute.»

Yukimura lowered his gaze to hide a bashful smile, and Sasuke continued.

«What was I saying… Ah  _—_ yeah, well, I don’t know, even though it was normal I felt a bit weird that time because I… I really liked it, and then I started thinking… heh, how embarrassing  _—_ I started thinking how it would be if we were to start dating, and before I knew it I got a crush on you. And then it became something more than a crush, and… well, you know how it works.»

«What?»

Sasuke raised one eyebrow, slightly embarrassed that he actually had to explain. «You know… butterflies in your stomach and all the rest.»

«Oh.» Yukimura blinked a couple of times while he looked away for a moment, probably embarrassed himself, but he soon turned towards his friend again. «And why didn’t you tell me before?»

«Because I was…» Sasuke paused, and he started snickering bitterly. «Yeah, I was scared of losing you. And you have no idea how bad I felt when I thought I made you hate me or something like that.»

«I could never hate you!» replied Yukimura, before pulling an apologetic expression. «I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have acted that way…»

«Don’t worry about it,» Sasuke said with a smile, leaning sideways to let his head bump Yukimura’s. «It was just a misunderstanding, and we resolved it, in the end, so it doesn’t matter.»

Yukimura smiled shyly, and although Sasuke really wanted to kiss him in that moment he refrained because he felt that it wasn’t the right time. Not yet.

«You know, it’s been… really hard,» he continued, but his expression was cheerful. «Even though I didn’t want to tell you openly I did decide to give it a try and make you understand somehow, but, well, we all know you’re not the brightest person in the world when it comes to this kind of stuff, so you never got any of my signals.»

Yukimura pouted, but he couldn’t deny that the other was right.

«For real, not a single one of them. Sometimes I shamelessly flirted with you and you just laughed. It was so frustrating it was almost funny.» And he was laughing, thinking of all the times Yukimura’d misunderstood the meaning of his words or simply thought he was joking. «But lately some… talks I’ve had made me think that maybe it was my fault too for not being straightforward enough.» He reached out one hand to ruffle Yukimura’s hair, and the latter let out a small puff of air mixed with a chuckle. «I kept trying, but I was too scared to try hard enough. Pretty lame, huh?»

«That’s not true!» intervened Yukimura with energy. He immediately looked down, though, a bit embarrassed. «I mean… I can understand that. I was scared of losing you too.»

That made sense, Sasuke thought, but he still arched his eyebrows with surprise. «You were?»

«Yeah…» Yukimura’s face was growing redder again. «I really really wanted to kiss you a lot, but more than anything I wanted to stay with you, so I was just… waiting for it to go away.»

Again, nothing unusual, and yet Sasuke blinked and blushed a little. «You… wanted to kiss me…?»

All right, they’d just kissed a few minutes before, and, well, usually liking someone did legitimately involve wanting to kiss them. And in addition Sasuke already knew that Yukimura liked him (even though he’d kept doubting until the very end). But he’d spent so much time dying over the wish for it to be true with no actual hope at all, that now it almost sounded weird to him. Especially coming right from Yukimura’s mouth. And not in a dream.

«Of course I did!» Yukimura was visibly flustered  _—_ his upper lip was trembling a little _—_ , but nonetheless his gaze was firm into Sasuke’s eyes. «That’s… That’s what made me realise my feelings, in fact.»

Sasuke chuckled to chase his nervousness away and slightly tilted his head to show his curiosity. «Is that so? Wait, can I ask when it happened? When you… came to like me? Because if it’s more or less the same time as me we’re definitely the biggest idiots on earth.»

Yukimura giggled at that, but his eyes trailed down. «I, uh… I don’t know.»

There were a few moments of silence where Sasuke blinked once, puzzled, before he went back to smirking. «Come on, what do you mean you don’t know? More or less, you don’t have to set a date.»

But Yukimura shook his head. «I don’t know… All I remember is that somewhere along the way I started thinking that you were really handsome and your lips were really beautiful and I wanted to kiss them—» he took a deep breath, «but I’m pretty sure I’d already been feeling like that for a while. I just… didn’t realise it.»

Another pause. 

«What do you mean you didn’t realise.»

«I mean I wasn’t conscious of it!»

After blinking once more, Sasuke burst out laughing without any delicacy. «How can you not be conscious of something like this?» he cried, completely ignoring the fact that making fun of his friend in the situation they were in wasn’t exactly the nicest thing to do.

And Yukimura, of course, didn’t exactly seem to appreciate it.

«You’re my friend!» he replied, frustrated. «We’ve been friends since forever! How could I know I was in love with you if I already loved you?»

Those words stroke an arrow straight into Sasuke’s heart. That… That hurt. It was so cute it hurt.

«Yukimura…» he said with a sheepish smile, touched.

«I was just happy to see you,» Yukimura continued, having now calmed down a bit. «It was normal to be happy to see you. My heart was racing, my face went hot and all that  _—_ but the only thing that I actually paid attention to was that I was happy, and I’d always been happy to have you around… It’s only obvious I didn’t notice.»

Sasuke was about to lean in to kiss him, feeling like that moment was a good time to do it, but Yukimura lowered his gaze just before he could move. Even though he’d been the one to suggest talking, Sasuke was now starting to grow a little impatient: all that mentioning kisses, Yukimura’s illegally pretty face being so close, and most importantly the possibility to finally kiss him without being rejected made Sasuke want to press his lips on Yukimura’s and never pull away. The kiss they’d shared before had been nice, but it had left him with a sense of dissatisfaction, as brief as it had been. Despite this, though, he kept quiet and patently listened.

«And then…» Yukimura was saying, as red as a tomato, «after a while, I realised  _—_ wait, this isn’t— this isn’t normal between friends, right? I mean… wanting to kiss you. So I started thinking… that maybe I was in love with you, but it was so weird because we’ve been friends for years and it had never happened, so why was it happening now! I had no idea what it was supposed to mean, and I started thinking that maybe I _wasn’t_ really in love and I was just confused, but then it kept happening that when I thought about you and how precious you were to me and how much I loved you I thought that I would’ve liked to kiss you, to hug you tight and hide my face in your shoulder and then kiss your shoulder too, and... u-uh…»

As it often happened when he was nervous, Yukimura’d started talking nonstop without even thinking, just honestly spilling out everything that was in his mind; and, as it almost as often happened in these cases, at one point he suddenly realised how embarrassing the things he was saying were, and he got flustered and hesitated. Needless to say, Sasuke found it so adorable his heart was literally aching.

«A-anyway!» the younger one resumed, his eyes searching for Sasuke’s. «The problem was that at the same time I kept thinking _—_ what’s the difference, honestly? I mean, we already went out and had fun together, we cared for each other and looked after each other, we were close and everything else  _—_ what difference was there between loving you as a friend or… romantically? I just… I was confused! How could I be sure things had changed?»

«Because, you see…» said Sasuke with a chuckle. «When things change… they’re different.»

Yukimura opened his mouth to talk, but he seemed a bit thrown off by his friend’s reply. «That’s… That’s right, but…»

Sasuke quit holding back, and moved forward to gently join their lips. Yukimura flinched a little, since he wasn’t expecting it, but he immediately wrapped his arms around Sasuke’s shoulders and threw himself forward to be closer to him; he closed his eyes, as familiar hands slowly ran from his waist to his back, and the two lovers could finally share a proper kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it really took me nine chapters to get to the fluff but FINALLY HERE WE ARE please accept these awkward dorks (and look forward to the next chapter!)


	10. Chapter 10

«There’s one thing you should be able to tell me, though,» Sasuke said. They were now strolling between the trees in the park, wandering around without being really headed anywhere, hand in hand. Having their fingers intertwined and slightly swinging their arms was heartwarming. «Maybe you don’t know when it happened exactly, but how long ago did you realise, at least?»

«Mmh…» Yukimura moved his gaze towards the grass in front of his feet, a bit shyly. «I’d say… four or five months ago? Something like that.»

Sasuke laughed. «So we’ve been tormenting ourselves all this time for nothing?» he said, amused. Thank goodness he easily saw the funny side of things, because something so stupid was worth weeping for. «We really are two idiots, huh?»

Yukimura giggled as well, swaying a little to bump into the other’s shoulder with his own as some kind of protest.

«I guess we are,» he admitted with a smile, though, after hesitating for a moment. Sasuke was right, it was pretty silly.

«I’d suggest trying to decide who’s more stupid, but I’m too scared I might win,» continued Sasuke, still snickering. «For real, do you have any idea of how many times I was on the verge of blowing everything and telling you? Just in the last two weeks, what… every time I saw you?»

Yukimura’s cheeks turned pink, but his smile remained beautifully bright. «Really?»

«Honest.» Sasuke halted and turned to face him, grabbing his other hand too. «I kept being indecisive because I didn’t want to screw up, but then I looked at you and I just went crazy!» He was talking with a confident grin on his face, but he was actually blushing a little too. «And, well, in the end that’s what I did the other day. I stopped thinking for one second and then… it just happened. And it didn’t look like you were going to move away, so I didn’t stop... It shouldn’t have gone that way, I’m sorry to have confused you.»

«Don’t worry about it,» Yukimura replied, his attitude now more bashful because of Sasuke’s flattering words, «it doesn’t matter anymore. Everything went well in the end, didn’t it?»

Sasuke brushed the tip of Yukimura’s nose with his own. «Yeah.»

«Besides…» added Yukimura, after nuzzling his own nose against Sasuke’s. «I think we did the right thing.»

Sasuke raised one eyebrow and curled one corner of his mouth into a smirk, curious. «How come?»

Yukimura’s smile was ridiculously bright and warm. «Because we did it not to ruin our friendship! Because we treasure each other! Isn’t that right?»

Sasuke blinked twice and slightly opened his mouth, caught off guard. Really, it was starting to become embarrassing. His heart couldn’t skip a beat every single time Yukimura said something cute like that. It was already the third or fourth time only that day, he had to pull himself together.

«Yeah, um…» he went, clearing his throat a little. «Makes sense.»

Yukimura let out a blissful laugh, having probably noticed Sasuke’s embarrassment, and moved forward to let their noses touch again. He seemed to appreciate that gesture quite a lot. Sasuke made a mental note.

«I’m happy of how things sorted out, though,» Yukimura said, and he did look very happy. Sasuke barely managed to hold back from jumping on him and covering that pretty face with kisses  _—_ and he only did because, despite the fact that at the moment they were basically alone, they were still in a public park.

«Yeah,» he replied, tilting his head so that their foreheads could press together as well, «me too.»

They smiled at each other, and after a couple of seconds had passed in silence they rubbed noses together once more and went back to their lazy stroll around the park.

«So,» Sasuke began out of the blue, pulling a smirk, «this means you like me, right? This means I can kiss you, right?» He used the same words as Yukimura’s while doing a bad impression of a pure and innocent voice solely to mock the other.

Yukimura furrowed his brow and gave him a light shove, flustered. «Oh, come on, Sasuke! Stop making fun of me!»

Sasuke laughed. «Sorry, sorry.» He wasn’t done, however. He leaned a bit closer, so that he could lower his voice. «It was your first kiss, huh?»

Yukimura bit his lips, pretending to take a look around. They both knew it was _—_ they were friends, after all, Sasuke knew perfectly that he had no experience.

He nodded, unable to bring himself to say it out loud. Sasuke couldn’t help but feel a little cruel for enjoying it, but he was too busy thinking how adorable Yukimura’s embarrassed expressions were to feel guilty for real.

«Did you like it?» he kept teasing, and Yukimura let out a frustrated sound between sealed lips.

«Yes…» the younger one faintly replied.

Sasuke burst out laughing and tackled him with a hug.

«Ahh, I’m so happy,» he said, nuzzling his nose against Yukimura’s temple and letting out a relaxed sigh. «I’ll give you all the kisses you want.»

A little surprised at first, Yukimura gladly hid his face in the creak of Sasuke’s neck and softly tightened the grip on his shirt; Sasuke imagined that the other was smiling, and in that moment he really felt like he was the happiest person in the world.

He happened to glance at the sky, then, and noticed that the sun, alas, was slowly starting to paint the clouds with pink and gold, meaning the evening was approaching.

«Come on, it’s time to go,» he said, although unwillingly. «I’ll accompany you home.»

 

***

 

Walking all the way home hand in hand had been strange, Yukimura thought, but it had been nice too. Greeting Sasuke with a quick kiss on the lips before forcing himself to walk through the door with one last goodbye had also been strange, but that had been nice as well. Nice and at the same time not really nice, because he didn’t want Sasuke to leave, but… Oh, he was feeling so many things all at once! He was now lying on his bed, as if he were exhausted  _—_ which he was, because strong emotions were tiring, and that day had been full of strong emotions.

He still couldn’t believe it had happened for real. He was afraid it was just a dream and he could wake up any moment. He kept thinking about the most recent events, and he felt his face burn. The unexpected kiss of the other night, the awkward silence that had followed, the embarrassing chase of that morning (he’d panicked, his legs had just moved on his own!), and then all that talking and explaining and finally understanding and… and then they’d kissed…

Yukimura hid his face behind his hands, a stupid grin printed on his lips. He’d kissed Sasuke…

He let out a blissful sigh and rolled on his side, as he tried without much success to process the fact that Sasuke liked him. Not Kasuga! Not anybody else! Sasuke liked him the same way he liked Sasuke! It seemed just too incredible after having been convinced otherwise for months.

And now they were dating. They were a couple. And they’d kissed. And they could kiss again, as many times as they wished. And they could go on dates together and cuddle on the sofa and do all those things that couples did. He felt an incredible urge to run and jump and yell.

He grabbed his phone to see if he could chat with someone to try and calm down a little, but while glancing at the latest conversations his eyes immediately spotted Sasuke’s profile picture (a silly photo taken by one of his classmates, who had also taken care of fitting himself into the picture, in which Sasuke looked like he was asleep on his desk) and he smiled, feeling warmth spread inside his chest. He shyly sent him a little heart, before going back to his original intent.

Another conversation among the most recent ones was the chat with Mitsunari, from Saturday. After he’d left, his friend had asked him if he was feeling ok, without saying anything else. Yukimura had replied, maybe with a couple too many exclamation marks, that yes, he was totally fine, and he’d said to thank Ieyasu again for the fun night. Mitsunari’s messages were never particularly eloquent, so Yukimura hadn’t read too much into the flat good night he’d gotten. He should have, but he couldn’t know.

The first thought that came into his mind upon seeing his friend’s name was that he needed to tell him, since Mitsunari knew how troubled he’d been over the matter. His second thought was that he had no idea how to tell him.

He couldn’t just say “hey, Sasuke and I are dating!” out of the blue, it was too embarrassing! Plus by message it would’ve been even worse… No, he decided to wait to see him again, and then he would’ve found a way to break the news to him. Probably. Maybe? Somehow…

He muffled a flustered exclamation by rolling on his belly and plunging his face into the pillow.

He also had to tell his parents, actually. He never kept anything important hidden from them, and a relationship was a pretty important thing, important enough to deserve a mention. They’d always liked Sasuke too, and he’d been his friend for so long he was already part of the family, so they would’ve probably been happy. Still, it was embarrassing. Not as embarrassing as telling Mitsunari, but embarrassing nevertheless…

Now that he thought about it, this was his first relationship. And not just that  _—_ it was the first time he’d even thought about having a relationship. He’d never really liked anyone before Sasuke, or at least not enough to take it seriously into consideration. Romance just wasn’t something that had ever been on his mind. And because of this, he had no idea what he was supposed to do. How do you tell the people around you that something so big has changed in your life? Like, how do you bring out the topic? Is it really necessary?

How did relationships even work? He barely had an idea of what he could do with Sasuke now, since when he used to fantasise about the two of them (because as much as he’d tried to avoid it he couldn’t deny he’d done that) he’d only vaguely thought about kissing or holding hands.

He remembered when he asked Mitsunari what the difference between friends and lovers was. All right, he got that, it was in the feelings  _—_ but in practice did lovers behave that much differently from very close friends? Maybe there was a little more physical contact, but Yukimura still failed to see a huge difference between the two things, and he thought that this time he was right.

Not that he minded  _—_ as a matter of fact, it was reassuring to know that things wouldn’t have changed that much. He and Sasuke already went out together, they already did fun things together, they spent a lot of time together, both outside and at home, they even hugged and they didn’t mind sharing personal space, and Yukimura didn’t see much more they could do. Except kissing, but he should really stop thinking about it or his face would’ve never gone back to its original colour.

He gave another look at his phone, even though he doubted that Sasuke had already seen his message. He decided to write to Mitsunari, and asked him if he wanted to study together the next day. He also innocently added that he needed to tell him something, and while waiting for a reply he went back to his thoughts.

 

***

 

The phone buzzed on the table. Mitsunari raised his eyes from the book he was reading, and he calmly got up to fetch the device before going back to his comfortable position on the sofa, leaned on Ieyasu, who was playing a game on his phone.

Mitsunari’s forehead furrowed while he read the message he’d gotten, and the other sent him a curious glance.

«Is something the matter?» Ieyasu asked.

«It’s Yukimura,» Mitsunari replied, his bothered gaze fixed on the screen. «Something happened.»

«What is it?»

«I don’t know, he simply says he needs to talk.» Mitsunari typed a quick reply, telling his friend he could come after school. «I’m sure it’s Sarutobi,» he said then, lifting his eyes on Ieyasu with a serious expression.

«Oh, come on now,» Ieyasu said cheerfully, «don’t jump to conclusions…»

«That damn Sarutobi did something to him,» Mitsunari insisted, ignoring the comment.

Ieyasu noticed from his expression that it was already too late: it was difficult to dissuade Mitsunari when he was that convinced of something. And the more time passed, the more he convinced himself, so Ieyasu had to be quick if he wanted to try to make him reason.

«Why do you think so?»

«It’s obvious that something happened between them the other night, and now Yukimura is saying there’s something he needs to tell me,» Mitsunari replied, lowering his eyes as he recalled considerations he’d already made. «He was too tense, and they avoided each other after coming back from the kitchen…»

«That’s true, but it could’ve been anything…»

Mitsunari straightened his back to properly face Ieyasu. «What reason could they have not to talk to each other for the rest of the evening? Be serious, Ieyasu! We haven’t heard them fight, and there’s only one unresolved matter between them at the moment!»

«But keep in mind that they’re friends, it would be strange if now all of a sudden Sarutobi hurt Sanada… And even if that were the case, he couldn’t possibly have done it on purpose, right?»

«This doesn’t change the fact that he’s an unreliable traitor. Yukimura has been upset because of him for months, and that’s already enough to blame him. Then they’re left alone for five minutes and something happens that makes Yukimura unsettled. I’m sure you agree that it can’t be a coincidence.» Mitsunari was angrily staring at Ieyasu while he explained his reasons. «I asked Yukimura if something was wrong, that night, and he said that he was fine when he clearly wasn’t. He never lies to me. Never.»

Iyasu sighed. «I think you should give Sarutobi more credit…»

«Why do you keep defending him, Ieyasu? It’s undeniable that he did something that hurt Yukimura!»

«Mitsunari…» Ieyasu moved a little closer, taking his lover’s hand between his own and gently caressing the back of it, while he smiled with tenderness. «Why don’t you wait to hear Sanada out, first? Maybe it’s got nothing to do with Sarutobi… It doesn’t even need to be something bad, actually.»

After a pause, Mitsunari seemed to calm down a little. Mostly thanks to the warm touch, he’d decided to take his boyfriend’s words into consideration, and from the look on his face Ieyasu could guess that the other was realising he was right.

«Very well, then,» Mitsunari said, after clicking his tongue with contempt. «I’ll give that filthy liar a chance. But if it really is about him… I will kill him.»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! We're almolst at the end, I hope you'll look forward to the last chapter!~
> 
> I have a feeling I’ve been making lots of grammar mistakes, but since I’m not 100% sure how to correct them I’ve decided to leave everything as it is, so please bear with me. I promise I’ll work hard on improving!


	11. Chapter 11

«Good morning, my dear Kasuga!»

«Sarutobi!»

«I have to say you look particularly pretty, today.»

«Oh, quit it! So what’s the big news?»

Sasuke snickered. «Heh… You _wish_ you knew, huh?»

Kasuga glared at him. «Sarutobi, I don’t care in the least about you, but after all those stupid mysterious messages you sent me yesterday I am not going to wait another minute. Stop being a prick and tell me what happened, or I will slap your stupid face in front of everyone.»

Sasuke was in such a good mood that he simply burst out laughing, before pretentiously releasing a dreamy sigh and bending forward to lean his left forearm and right elbow on his friend’s desk, so that he could lay his chin on the palm of his hand.

«I did it,» he simply said, the widest of grins spread across his face.

Kasuga blinked a couple of times before she realised what he meant. «Oh!» she gasped, sincerely surprised. «You finally asked him out?»

Sasuke’s expression became even more obnoxious, if possible. «Better. We kissed.»

Kasuga couldn’t believe her ears. She’d lectured that idiot so many times that she was starting to lose all hopes for him. Every time it seemed he’d finally resolved to take the initiative he suddenly lost all his confidence and cowardly retreated, giving in to his worries and insecurities. Which was understandable, to an extent, but in her eyes he’d surpassed that extent a long time before.

«What?! When? How?» she asked in disbelief. She then raised one eyebrow, sceptical. «I bet _he_ kissed _you,_ am I right?»

Sasuke straightened his back and folded his arms, shaking his head with a boastful smirk. «Believe it or not, I did it.» His expression immediately became more awkward, though, and he bit his lips. «Well, to be honest I screwed up a little, uh… Let’s say I didn’t exactly do things how they were supposed to be done. But in the end it all turned out fine!» he concluded, going back to his initial liveliness.

«Are you going to keep blabbering for long or will you finally tell me what happened?» Kasuga huffed, leaning a bit forward over her desk without realising it. Willing or not, she’d followed the whole story since the beginning, she had the right to be curious about this unexpected ending.

Sasuke gave a nod towards the classroom door. «Come, let’s take a walk in the corridors before classes start.»

 

«You’re an idiot,» Kasuga hopelessly sighed, for at least the tenth time since the other had started telling the story. She’d even hit him when she found out that basically the cause of all that ruckus was the fact that he was always joking around and pretended to be in love with her. How ridiculous and embarrassing!

«I know.» Sasuke wasn’t even affected by it anymore. He was lazily strolling with his arms raised and his fingers intertwined behind his head, a stupid smile lingering on his lips as he kept thinking about the day before.

«So everything ended well, it seems,» the girl commented as they walked back into the classroom and went to sit at their desks. «It’s so weird. Just a few days ago you were still whining like a toddler.»

«And now I have a boyfriend.»

Kasuga glared at that stupid grin and thought that maybe she preferred Sarutobi when he was more insecure rather than this overconfidence he was showing now. But then again, being incredibly annoying was part of his character, so she guessed she couldn’t avoid having to bear with him. Why were they friends again?

«Oh!» Sasuke seemed to have realised something and Kasuga looked at him with suspicion. «But of course this doesn’t mean that I won’t love you anymore! You’ll always have a special place—»

«Are you already back at it with this story? Haven’t you learnt your lesson?» she interrupted, unable to believe that he was still willing to fool around after everything that had happened.

Sasuke’s response was a giggle. «Fair enough. For real, though,» and now his smile had become warmer and more sincere, «thank you. For everything. It’s nice to know that you’re there for me.»

«Don’t get cheesy now just because you have a boyfriend,» she replied bluntly, crossing her arms and turning her gaze away. She couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from curling upwards, though, and it didn’t escape Sasuke’s notice.

 

***

 

Yukimura wasn’t even aware of how fast he was walking; he was so over the moon that it was as if he were overcharged with energy.

He’d spent lunch break with Sasuke in the school yard. Nothing special, to speak the truth: they’d chatted and laughed, just like they always did  _—_ and it was amazing exactly because it felt natural and familiar. There was no awkwardness between them, they were still best friends who enjoyed spending time together, and Yukimura was delighted, because his bond with Sasuke was important to him.

Then, of course, the quick kiss that Sasuke had stolen him before they separated had made everything better.

And now he was pacing towards Mitsunari’s house, ready (well, no, actually not at all) to bring him the good news. He was so thrilled! He didn’t even know if in a good way or in a bad way, he only knew that his heart was racing and that he was most likely going to stutter a lot before getting to the point. Even though he’d spent quite some time musing on what words he could use, he still hadn’t got a clue, so he guessed he would just improvise.

At least he’d gained a bit of courage because he’d already told his family and things had gone smoothly: there’d been a lot of blushing from his part, but he’d eventually managed to utter a very flustered and energetic “Sasuke and I are dating!”; his parents had reacted with great surprise, but they were glad, which made Yukimura feel very relieved.

He rang the bell, and after a short while the door opened.

«Hi!»

«Hi. Come in.»

Mitsunari seemed a little gloomier than usual, but Yukimura didn’t think anything of it. He simply walked inside with his usual cheerfulness, going straight to his friend’s bedroom to leave his rucksack next to a chair.

«How’s your day been?» he asked, turning to smile brightly at the other.

«Fine,» Mitsunari quickly shrugged it off. «What was it that you needed to tell me?» he immediately asked, looking at the younger one straight in the eyes.

«Oh.» Yukimura held his breath for a moment. He wasn’t ready at all, no. «Uhh, well, you see…» His cheeks started feeling warm and his stare fell on his intertwined fingers, as he twiddled his thumbs. «It’s… um… about Sasuke…»

«Sarutobi!» roared Mitsunari, startling Yukimura. «That filthy liar…! What did he do? I knew it was his fault, I knew it!»

«Wh-what?» Yukimura blinked a few times, eyes wide open and the most bewildered expression on his face.

But Mitsunari had already grabbed his shoulders and was now looking at him with a scary light in his eyes. «What… did he do to you…?» he asked, lowering his voice and dragging the syllables with rage. «Tell me, what did he do to you?»

«U-uhh…» Yukimura was panicking. What did Mitsunari know? And why was he so angry in the first place? «What— What do you mean…?»

«You don’t need to defend him, I’ll make him pay for everything he did!»

One of the reasons why the two of them had been able to remain friends for all those years was that Yukimura was rarely scared of Mitsunari’s bursts of rage, despite the latter looking quite terrifying in those moments; Mitsunari could snarl in his face and Yukimura wouldn’t even flinch  _—_ on the contrary, he would firmly answer back if he believed it was necessary. This time, however, the younger one was genuinely frightened, mainly because it wasn’t his own safety which was at stake, and because he wasn’t sure what the reason of Mitsunari’s outrage was.

«P-please don’t be mad! Sasuke— We didn’t mean to do anything bad, we just— Things kind of happened on their own and—» he stuttered, doing his best to hold Mitsunari’s stare, but he only ended up looking at him with puppy eyes.

Mitsunari didn’t seem to expect a reply of that kind, thus puzzlement allowed him to slightly calm down. «What are you talking about?»

«I don’t know, what are we talking about?» replied Yukimura, because he was too dazed to give a clear answer.

Mitsunari let out a short frustrated sigh, irritated by the general confusion of the situation. «Just— tell me what you wanted to tell me.»

Yukimura hesitated. He tried to work up the courage to speak, but his face was burning and his head was spinning and his heart was beating ridiculously fast. He sat down on the chair he was still next to, and Mitsunari did the same on the edge of his bed, without taking his eyes off the little one, waiting.

Several seconds went by in silence, but seeing that Mitsunari was growing impatient Yukimura finally took a deep breath and said it as quickly as he could.

«We’re dating.»

He wasn’t looking at Mitsunari, he was too flustered.

«What did you say?»

He dared to lift his gaze: saying that his friend was utterly bewildered wouldn’t have done justice to his expression.

Yukimura chuckled to release some of the tension that was clutching his stomach. «Yesterday at school he told me that… he… that he likes me, and then after school we had a walk and talked, and…» He was the type of person who usually enjoyed sharing a lot of details, but not this time. It definitely wasn’t something he could talk about without getting embarrassed. He laughed again. «Well, you know. We’re… we’re dating now.» Saying it out loud felt so weird.

Mitsunari kept staring at him for another few moments, before he found something to say.

«I’m… This is a surprise.» And he did look pretty lost. «So you’re saying that nothing bad happened?»

Yukimura arched his eyebrows, surprised. «Of course not!»

«Are you sure everything is fine?»

«Yeah!»

«And… are you happy?»

«Really happy!» replied Yukimura with the brightest of smiles.

Mitsunari still seemed perplexed, but he got up from the bed without adding any other questions.

«I’ll make tea,» he said instead, «come.»

Yukimura nodded and stood up as well.

«I believe you owe me some explanations. You’d better tell me everything that happened, so that I can understand. Starting from Saturday.»

«Y-yes…»

 

***

 

«Ha ha! You’re the worst keeper ever, Maeda!»

«Hey! I’m trying, ok?  _—_ Come on, guys, take the ball away from here, please!»

«We’re trying!»

«What is it, Sanada, can’t get past me?»

«Ugh…!»

«Nobody cares about you, Date, Tokugawa’s the tough one…»

«Say that again you little…!»

They’d taken possession of the little football field at the park  _—_ actually just a rectangle of lawn with two goals  _—_ and they were finally having the match Yukimura had been dreaming of: Tokugawa, Chosokabe and Date against Sanada, Sarutobi and Maeda, who’d been very enthusiastic to join even though he wasn’t exactly a good player. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the perfect day for an epic game like that. Even Ishida was there, watching the match from one side of the court, hating every second of it but politely keeping his mouth shut anyway. And he refrained from complaining only because Yukimura had insisted a lot for him to be there.

«No, no… Ugh…!»

Yukimura was trying to keep the ball, but in the end Ieyasu managed to steal it from him and immediately passed to Masamune, who scored once again. They hadn’t started long before, but it was already very clear who was winning.

«Maaan, you’re really distracted today, aren’t you?» Masamune said with an arrogant smirk, walking towards Yukimura and crossing his arms over his chest. «Seems like getting yourself a boyfriend hasn’t changed much, your head is still somewhere else. This is no good.»

Yukimura blushed and furrowed his brow, but he came back with a vigorous protest. Masamune was the type of guy who loved to make the most of every reason he had to tease the others, so he would’ve probably continued with that story for a while, as long as he thought it was funny. Being a jerk was one of his favourite ways to show interest.

The way he found out had been pretty embarrassing: he was sparring with Yukimura, a couple of days before, and seeing how extremely full of energy his rival was he’d made a comment along the lines of “You kissed a guy or something?”, to which Yukimura had literally lost his balance, tripped, and ungraciously fallen on his behind. Masamune had raised his eyebrows, not expecting to see the other’s face so red, and after insisting a little he’d gotten the truth out of him.

Very embarrassing indeed for the poor Yukimura, who still found it strange to refer to Sasuke as his boyfriend, and very amusing for Masamune, who’d immediately started to laugh at his friend only for the sake of making him blush even more.

«Sarutobi,» Mitsunari called at one point, during a pause, since Sasuke had momentarily left the court to grab his water bottle.

«Hm?» Sasuke said, raising his surprised gaze on Ishida  _—_ who hardly ever acknowledged his presence.

«I need to talk to you for a second,» Mitsunari said, glancing at the others to make sure that their attention was elsewhere. «Listen carefully. I don’t like you, and the fact that Yukimura had to suffer because of you only makes me like you less.»

Sasuke lifted his brow, in response to Ishida’s cross expression. Now that seemed like a promising beginning.

«I am only accepting you because, for some reason, he likes you,» Mitsunari continued, folding his arms.

Wait, was that… Was Ishida giving him the best friend talk?

«You don’t deserve him in the least, but he deserves to be happy, and for some reason he is happy when he’s with you, so you’d better treat him like the most precious thing you have.»

Yes, it was definitely the best friend talk. Which was ironic, Sasuke thought, because he was Yukimura’s best friend too. Hilarious, really  _—_ hadn’t it been for Ishida’s angry stare fixed on him. It was true what they said, it was terrifying.

«But know that I won’t allow you to do any more harm to him,» Mitsunari was saying. «I’ll be keeping an eye on you, and as soon as I notice something suspicious I won’t hesitate to cut your throat, because I _don’t_ trust you. Did I make myself clear?»

«Y-yes…»

Forget the best friend talk, Ishida was really Yukimura’s dangerous and overprotective big brother…!

 

***

 

«And then he said “You may go now” as if he hadn’t just threatened to kill me,» Sasuke concluded. He wasn’t complaining, he was simply telling Yukimura what he’d missed the day before while he was busy arguing with Date over who’d been the last one to touch the ball before it went out of bounds. They were having lunch together in the school yard, under their favourite tree.

«Oh, come on, he was just saying that!» Yukimura commented before taking a huge bite of melonpan, completely unbothered by all the details that Sasuke had (jokingly, sure, but with a veil of genuine worry too) cared to add about Ishida’s murderous intents.

«I dearly hope so…!»

Yukimura laughed, and Sasuke joined him with a snicker.

«I bet he actually likes you,» Yukimura said then with a smile. «He’s just worried about me, and he’s… not too good at expressing his feelings. He doesn’t like being too open, that’s it.»

«He… literally said he doesn’t like me…»

«You just need to gain his trust! If he asked you to treat me right then there’s no problem, right? He has nothing he needs to worry about, because you’re the best at taking care of me! You’re so kind and sweet!»

«Geez, Yukimura! You can’t just say things like these without warning!»

«Why? What did I say? Hey, why are you laughing?»

«Oh my…» Sasuke closed his eyes for a moment, sighing through lips still curled into a smile. «You’re so adorable, it’s going to kill me.»

Confused by that reaction, Yukimura was eager for an explanation. «What do you mean? Did I say something strange?»

Sasuke shook his head. «No, no, it’s fine. I just… I wasn’t expecting it.»

«But it’s only obvious! It’s the truth!»

Sasuke sighed once more. «Really, what do I have to do with you?»

«Kiss me,» Yukimura suggested with a smile, seizing the opportunity.

Sasuke chuckled.

«Yes, sir.»

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s done! I was so excited that these weeks flew by, and we’re already here! lol  
> I know it’s not perfect, but I’ve spent so much time and effort in writing this story, and above all I’ve put all my heart in it and I’ve had so much fun that I’m satisfied with what turned out, so I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading it!  
> First of all, I’d like to thank my friend, who gave me the inspiration to write this in the first place, supported me all the way through, and she even made this amazing sasuyuki playlist (https://8tracks.com/tsuki_/stronger), which helped me a great deal when I was lacking ideas (it’s just lovely, you should go and listen to it!). Thank you, Bro, you’re the best <3  
> Then of course a huge thank you to everyone who gave this story a chance, and double thanks for staying with me until the end! Seeing the number of views growing consistently every week gave me the confidence I needed to continue publishing, thank you. That being said, please don’t forget to let me know if you enjoyed by leaving kudos or commenting, I’d be happy to know what you think! You can also send me a message on twitter (@abrosuna) or tumblr (@brevelilium) if you prefer, I’m always willing to cry over these dorks.  
> Thanks again for all the support!


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